Heartless (33 page)

Anna stood inside the salon for ten minutes, gazing out the window, drawing some strength from the sight of her own carriage and servants before the doorway. She slipped a hand beneath the robings of her open gown and through the slit at the side of her petticoat to the pockets taped about her waist beneath her hoops. Her fingers touched cold steel and suddenly felt as cold as the metal. And for a few moments she was breathless and the darkness threatened the edges of her vision again.

But she was not going to faint today, she decided. Never again. She was not going to be a victim ever again. She should never have allowed him to gain such power over her. When he had talked of witnesses to various crimes, she should have invited him to use them. She should have gambled on pitting her honesty against their lies. Except that there had been so much to lose then, both for herself and, more importantly, for her family.

No, she thought now, she must not blame herself for the weakness of the past. In the past it had been necessary. But no longer. Now, giving in to the endless demands protected only herself, making her into an abject, cringing creature.

She would not do it any longer.

The door opened behind her. She did not turn immediately.

“Anna.” He sounded genuinely pleased. “What a very pleasant surprise. You have brought your bundle in person instead of leaving it beneath the stone? I would have asked it, my dear, if I had realized you had the courage to come here alone and risk your reputation. Do take a seat. I shall have refreshments brought.”

She turned at last to look at him. He was wearing a morning gown of gray silk over his shirt and breeches. Without the padding of waistcoat and skirted coat, he looked thin rather than slim. His wig had not been freshly powdered. She guessed it was yesterday's powder. He looked older than usual.

“I want neither a chair nor refreshments,” she said. “And as you see, I carry no bundle.” She spread her empty hands to the sides. “There is no bundle beneath the stone outside the cottage.”

He looked sympathetic rather than angry. “He has hidden away the valuables and the keys, my Anna?” he asked. “What sort of a husband is that, I ask you? Not one who loves you as you deserve to be loved, my dear.”

I love you.
She had a vivid image of Luke's face above hers on her bed, the tender light of love in his eyes to prove the truth of the words he spoke. She thrust the memory back whence it came.

“I will not pay any more of my father's debts,” she said, “until they have been presented in full to either my husband or my brother. And I will not allow you to make any more threats to me. If you wish to bring any charges against me, you may speak to the appropriate authorities. My husband will be home soon. When he returns, I shall tell him everything. Every single sordid little detail. Perhaps you can make life difficult financially for my brother, sir, and perhaps you can destroy me. Perhaps you can even put a rope about my neck. But I will not allow you to harass and intimidate me ever again. Your power over me is ended as of this moment.”

He looked at her silently for a few moments, his hands clasped at his back. And then he smiled slowly. “Anna, my dear,” he said at last, “you are magnificent. You are finally becoming the woman I always knew you could be.”

“I will be returning home now,” she said. “I have three servants with me, sir, and several more at home know where I have come this morning and what time I expect to be home. If you try to detain me, there will be trouble.”

He laughed. “You are wonderful, my dear,” he said. “I kiss my hand to you.” He proceeded to do so. “You are free to leave whenever you wish.”

She stood looking steadily at him for a while, trying to make sense of his reaction. Was it possible that he would let her go so easily? Had it been as simple as this all along, if she had only had the courage to stand up against him?

She did not believe it for a moment.

She walked past him to the door and was relieved when he stepped well to one side of her path.

“Anna,” he said softly as she passed. “My dearest Anna.”

Her back prickled as she stepped into the hallway and summoned Penny. It bristled as she stepped outside and allowed her footman to hand her into the carriage. It crawled during the seemingly interminable time it took him to climb to his place beside the coachman.

And then the carriage lurched into motion. After a few minutes they were off Wycherly land and on the road back to Bowden.

She was free. It was all over. At last. She was free.

But she did not believe that, either, for a single moment.

•   •   •

Doris
was delighted to see Luke. She hugged him when he arrived at Harndon House and looked beyond him for Anna. He had come on business for a day or two and had left her at home with Joy, he explained. Doris was enjoying the entertainments of the spring Season in town and had an even larger court than she had had the year before.

“But if you do not mind being burdened with me for a while longer, I do not believe I will choose a husband from among them,” she explained to him. “There is no one for whom I feel a particular fondness.”

Last year, Luke thought, that argument would probably have meant nothing to him. This year it did. He smiled at her.

“Then you must wait until there is, Dor,” he said.

He arranged matters so that he could have a few words alone with his mother.

“I have learned the truth, you know,” he told her. “About George's death, that is. You should have told me, Mother. 'Twas something I needed to know.”

“No,” she said, her face stiff and pale. “You did not need to know anything so shameful. You thought badly enough of him as it was.”

“I have learned the full truth,” he said. “I have been to his grave, Mother, and wept there. He continued to love me even though he thought I had tried to kill him. I was angry enough to challenge him, to make a point, but I loved him too dearly to kill him. I aimed well to one side of him, but I hit him.”

“He knew it,” she said. “He always argued with your father that 'twas so.”

Luke went down on his haunches suddenly before her and took both her hands in his. “Mother,” he said, “Papa and George are dead, more is the pity. I will grieve for them for the rest of my life. But there are still you and Ashley and Doris and me. Let us love one another while we are alive and have the chance. I was without my family for ten years and convinced myself that 'twas better so. But I have learned in the past year that family and love are the most precious possessions anyone can own.”

His mother sat staring woodenly at the floor. “So many decisions,” she said, her tone flat, “have to be made without time to reflect and without knowledge of what the consequences will be. I had to decide, Lucas, between you on the one side and your father and George on the other. Duty led me to choose them. I have always put duty first since my marriage. I have always put duty before love. What is love, after all, but an emotion to cause us pain and bring us loss? I always loved you best, shameful as the admission is. But I put duty before love.”

“Mother.” He warmed her stiff, icy hands with his own. “Mother.” He raised her hands one at a time to his lips.

“I love all of you,” she said. “I worry about all of you. With my lips I try to persuade all of you to be dutiful. With my heart I am afraid that you will all love and be hurt by love.”

“Mother.” He kissed the palm of the hand he held to his lips. “Mama.”

She looked up at him. “I cannot change, Lucas,” she said. “But know that I love you and wish for your happiness. You made a wise choice in Anna.”

“Yes.” He squeezed her hands once more and released them as he got to his feet. “I have to call on Lady Sterne with a message from Anna. And then I must hurry home to her. All is well with Doris?”

“All is well,” his mother said. “She is a year older in age than she was last year and five years older in experience, I vow.”

•   •   •

Luke
called on Lady Sterne without delay and was fortunate to find her at home—with his uncle. They were seated quite respectably in her drawing room. Luke knew that they were lovers. He knew too that they were ever discreet and would not have dreamed of making love to each other in the home of either.

“Mercy on me,” Lady Sterne said, coming across the room to Luke, both hands extended. “As handsome as ever, Harndon. But you left Anna and the child at Bowden? For shame.”

“Hark ye, lad,” Lord Quinn said sternly, on his feet too, “I'll not have the two of you drifting apart merely because the first year of marriage is past. Pox on it, but marriage is the damnedest thing.”

“Oh, pshaw!” Lady Sterne said. “Pay him no heed, Harndon.”

“I need some information that I hope you can supply, madam,” Luke said, taking the offered chair.

Lady Sterne raised her eyebrows in enquiry.

“The late Lady Royce, your friend,” he said, “grew up knowing a family by the name of Blaydon. In particular a boy of about her age named Lovatt. The father would have been a baronet, I believe. Did she ever mention this man or this family to you?”

“Egad, Luke,” his uncle said, “you ask some strange questions.”

“The man took up residence at Elm Court immediately following Lady Royce's death,” Luke said, “and he has leased Wycherly Park from Severidge under an assumed name. Anna pretends not to know him, but Emily does know him and she does not like him. I have just come from Elm Court, where I spoke to Royce and to Charlotte.”

“Lud,” Lady Sterne said almost in a whisper, “Anna is harboring a secret?”

“Lookee, Luke,” Lord Quinn said, “you may bring naught but grief on yourself by prying into your wife's secrets.”

“Anna is not happy,” Luke said. “And I love her, Theo. Oh, yes, the two of you can congratulate each other on the total success of your schemes. I love her. Therefore, I must find out the truth.”

“But as I live, I have never heard the name,” Lady Sterne said. “Blaydon.” She frowned in thought. “You are quite sure it is not Blakely? Lowell Blakely?”

Luke stared at her. “Perhaps,” he said. “What do you know of him, madam?”

“He was a handsome lad,” Lady Sterne said, “tall and slender and dark. Or so Lucy said. I never saw him myself. He was quite in love with her and she had been infatuated with him when she was very young. She had promised—when she was just a young girl—to marry him. But even before her papa brought her to London she had grown tired of his persistence and his ardor and his jealousy. He used to smuggle letters to her quite shamelessly after she came here. She used to complain of them to me. She started to return them unopened. And then she met Royce and no man ever existed for her after that.”

“And she never heard from Blaydon—from Blakely—again?” Luke asked.

“Only once, as far as I know,” Lady Sterne said. “She was married in London. I remember her telling me afterward that he was standing outside the church, silently watching, when she came out on Royce's arm. Lud, it quite gave me the shudders when she told me that.”

Luke felt it now himself—a deep inward shudder. “The man who now calls himself Colonel Henry Lomax,” he said, “was standing outside the church when I brought Anna out after wedding her.”

“Mercy on us!” Lady Sterne said.

“Zounds!” Lord Quinn said.

“I believe,” Luke said, getting to his feet, “I had better return to Bowden as quickly as I can.” He bowed. “You will excuse me, madam?”

“Egad.” Lord Quinn jumped up too. “I'll come with you, lad. I can still shoot a pistol and hit my target, I warrant you. If this Blakely-Blaydon-Lomer or whoever he is thinks to lay one finger on that gel, he will find himself staring down the barrel of a gun with my itchy finger on the trigger. Devil a bit! I'll not be able to escort you to the Minden soirée tonight, Marj, m'dear.”

“Oh, do go with Harndon, Theo,” she said, her hands pressed to her mouth. “Oh, Anna. My dear little Anna.”

Luke did not argue. For almost ten years in France his sword and his pistol had been the only friends and the only defense he had felt need of and both had been quite adequate in protecting him. But for those ten years he had not had love to protect. Or Anna. He felt sick with worry.

Why in heaven's name had he left her there alone? He had seen only unhappiness. He had not dreamed of danger.

A
NNA
returned to Bowden Abbey late in the morning the day after her visit to Sir Lovatt Blaydon. She had been visiting the wife of one of her husband's laborers, a woman who had just given birth to her eighth child.

Anna was feeling happy, quite lightheartedly happy. Luke had been away for six days and should be home tomorrow or the day after. There was a little sick lurching of the stomach when she thought of all she must tell him on his return. But only a little. He knew her well enough by now, surely, to believe that she was neither a thief nor a murderer, and to understand why she had become involved in some shady dealings. And he would understand about that other ugly deed too, though the thought of telling him the details of that made her shudder. It seemed almost better to let him go on believing that she had had a lover. But she would tell him. She wanted everything off her mind and her conscience. Everything.

Surely Luke would believe her story. And surely he would be able to protect her from anything Sir Lovatt tried to do to her. Looking back now, she could not understand why she had not told him everything at the start, on that first dreadful morning when he had suggested that openness between them was essential to a workable marriage. Surely even then he would have helped her.

But it was hard now to look back on Luke as he had been then, and on herself as she had been. At that time he had not yet looked into her eyes with that special light in his own. At that time he had not yet told her that he loved her. He had told her quite the opposite, in fact. He had said that there would be no love between them. And she had seen steel in his eyes.

I love you.
She could hear him saying the words the night before his departure. She could see the look in his eyes. And she quickened her steps up to the nursery, feeling so happy despite her anxieties that it was difficult not to break into a run. What would the servants think if they saw her do that? Anna smiled at the thought.

She stopped abruptly in the doorway of the nursery. The room was empty. What a disappointment! Where had Nurse taken Joy? It was a fine day outside, but the baby's nurse always avoided the outdoors unless she had been given direct instructions to take the child out. She had the strange notion that fresh air was harmful to a child below the age of one.

Anna crossed the room and jerked on the bell pull. If the nurse had Joy somewhere in the house, then Anna would take her outside herself. Perhaps she would take her all the way to the falls. Emmy could come with them. The outing would help fill in time so that the day would pass quickly. Though she must not expect Luke tomorrow, she told herself. If she did, she would be disappointed if he did not come.

She would be disappointed anyway. She smiled again.

The nurse came into the room alone.

“Where is Joy?” Anna asked. She must be with Emmy, though Emmy never took her out of the nursery.

The nurse smiled. “The duchess took her out for a picnic, your grace,” she said. “I thought you would be pleased. She has never shown much interest in the child before. Packed a bagful of changing cloths, she did, and some extra clothes. As if she were going for a week, I told her.” She laughed. “Though I told her, too, she could not keep Lady Joy out for very long because she would want her feed. That will be another hour, your grace.”

Henrietta? She had taken Joy for a picnic? Alone with no nurse? With cloths that she would change herself? Anna remembered suddenly the smile Henrietta had given her when leaving her and Sir Lovatt alone in the drawing room three days ago. She felt instantly uneasy, even frightened. Henrietta had never shown any interest in Joy.

“Where did she go for the picnic?” she asked.

“She did not say, your grace.” For the first time the nurse looked uneasy herself. “But she did say that she spoke to you at breakfast.”

Anna left the room without another word and hastened down the stairs. Though she stopped halfway and hurried back up to her dressing room, where she took the knife from the drawer where she had hidden it the day before and slipped it into her pocket again. The action frightened her and she tried to tell herself that she was being absurd. She rushed back down the stairs.

But where would she begin looking? And why would she need to look? In another hour or less Joy would be hungry and would first fuss and then cry lustily. Henrietta would come hurrying back when that happened even if she did not return sooner. She had done this deliberately, Anna thought, merely to be tiresome.

How she disliked Henrietta. And how sad she felt at the change in their relationship. There had seemed to be so much love and friendship at first.

Henrietta, Anna saw as she stood uncertainly in the doorway, was strolling in leisurely fashion through the formal gardens toward the house—alone. She stopped walking and smiled when Anna came hurrying toward her. It was that same smile she had worn in the drawing room a few days ago.

“Where is Joy?” Anna asked. She was seriously frightened now.

“Quite safe,” Henrietta said. “She is with your lover.”

“W-what?” The darkness threatened again.

“I value our friendship even if you do not, you see,” Henrietta said, her eyes glittering with that strange look of triumph. “I still love you, Anna. I have been helping you, making your elopement easier. You have only yourself to take to the gamekeeper's cottage. The child is there already. You are fortunate that your lover is willing also to take the child. Many men would not. But he appears quite to dote on her.”

“Oh, dear God.” Anna gazed wildly at her sister-in-law. “What have you done, Henrietta? He is not my lover. And now he has kidnapped Joy. You must go for help. Please!” She clutched at the other woman's sleeve. “Go and tell Mr. Fox and Cotes. Get them to send as many menservants as possible. And quickly. Please, Henrietta. Please?”

Henrietta continued to smile. “Of course,” she said. “Of course, Anna. You run along. Did I do wrong?”

But Anna did not stay to answer. In her panic she broke into the run that in her happiness she had resisted inside the house.

She dared not think as she ran, though thoughts and images teemed unbidden through her mind. Sir Lovatt with Joy in his arms. Sir Lovatt threatening to dash out her brains on the stone outside the gamekeeper's cottage unless Anna promised to bring the money and jewels and to keep her mouth shut when Luke came home.

She would do it too. She would sell her soul to get her child safely back.

She had to pause on the bridge, one hand pressed to her side as she gasped for air.
Oh, dear God,
she prayed as she stumbled onward.
Dear God. Please, dear God.
God had seemed her friend again lately. Was he to turn deaf ears to her pleas again now? But it was a child for whom she prayed now. A helpless infant. An innocent.
Please, dear God. Please, dear God.

A man stood in the clearing before the cottage. A man she had not seen before. Undoubtedly the servant who had delivered the letters and left the bills beneath the stone and retrieved her money. Perhaps she had seen him once ride up to the house.

Anna came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the trees. “Where is she?” she demanded. “Where does he have her?”

The man set his fingers to his lips and whistled piercingly. Then he grinned at her.

A few moments later Sir Lovatt Blaydon stepped out from among the trees opposite, a blanket-bound bundle in his arms. The baby was still and quiet—
was she dead?

Anna stumbled toward him, arms outstretched. “Give her to me,” she begged. “Oh, please give her to me.” She did not even try to control the hysterical sobs that came with the words.

But two strong hands clamped onto her upper arms from behind before she could get close enough, and held her still.

“Dearest Anna,” Sir Lovatt said, smiling tenderly, “the time has come. There is a gate in the wall close by. My carriage awaits beyond. Do not worry that you bring no trunks or boxes. I have provided them for you. And I would prefer that you bring nothing that he has bought for you. Come, my dear.”

“What?” Hysteria gave place to frozen terror. “Where are you taking me?”

“Home, my dear,” he said. “I am taking you and the child to the home I prepared for you more than a year ago. In America, my Anna. Across the ocean, where we can be at peace together with no one to pursue or find us.”

“Oh, dear God,” she said.

“Come,” he said, and he nodded to the servant who still held her arms from behind. “We will talk as we travel.”

“No!” she shrieked. “You cannot take us to America. Not without a word to my husband. And you cannot take Joy. She is his daughter.”

“She belongs to you,” Sir Lovatt said. His tender gaze was transferred to the sleeping child in his arms. “And to me now. She is beautiful, my Anna. But come. No more delay.”

Anna struggled against the servant, who urged her forward. “Take me if you must,” she said. She was sobbing again. “But please send Joy home. Oh, please. She is his. She belongs here with him. Please send her back home. I will come without a struggle if you will but send her home.”

But Sir Lovatt merely nodded curtly to his servant, who swept her up into his arms and strode with her through the trees to the gate she had never seen before and beyond it to a waiting carriage. He thrust her inside, and Sir Lovatt climbed in behind her, the baby still in his arms.

Anna moved to the corner of the seat and reached out her arms blindly. He set the baby in them and seated himself beside her. Anna bent her head over the warm bundle of her daughter and wept as the door was firmly closed from the outside. A moment later the carriage lurched into motion.

•   •   •

Emily
clutched the gatepost and watched the carriage disappear along the road. She felt such panic that for a full minute she stood rooted to the spot. She could not decide whether to go running after the carriage or to race to the village, which she could reach in perhaps five minutes if she ran without stopping, or to run all the way back to the house.

But she stood rooted to the spot in despair. There was no point in trying to follow the carriage on foot. And if she ran into the village she would not be able to make anyone understand that her sister and her niece had been abducted. If she ran back to the house, a great deal of time would be wasted and she would still face the same problem.

Ashley. Oh, Ashley.

She started to cry in her fright and frustration and then turned back to the house. She had to make someone understand. She had to. But not when
she
was around—Henrietta.

Emily had seen Henrietta take the baby from the nursery and had been struck by how unusual an event it was, especially the fact that she also brought from the nursery a large bag of supplies. How foolish the nurse was, Emily had thought, letting the baby go so easily when Anna was not at home to permit it and Luke had gone away for a week.

Emily had followed, keeping well behind the woman and child, careful not to be seen. And to her amazement it had soon become obvious to her that Henrietta was taking the familiar route to the gamekeeper's cottage.

Emily had watched it all—the meeting with Sir Lovatt Blaydon, his taking the baby and smiling down at her, Henrietta smiling and happy and turning back to the house. But Emily had stayed where she was, sick with terror and bewilderment and indecision. Should she show herself and try to wrest the baby away from him? But that servant Emily had seen before was there too. It would do no good to show herself. It was her duty to keep herself hidden so that at the very least she could tell Anna where the baby had gone.

She had stood there long enough for despair to set in. Sir Lovatt had disappeared with Joy while his servant had remained, pacing up and down before the cottage. Waiting. Waiting for what? For whom? For Anna? But of course for Anna. Henrietta would return to the house and tell her about Joy and Anna would come for her. But surely not alone. Surely she would bring servants who could help get the baby back.

Emily had known that Anna would come alone.

And so she had stood hidden, helplessly watching the scene before her as Anna had struggled to reach the baby and as she had eventually been carried away by the servant. Sir Lovatt following with the baby. Emily had followed them cautiously and had discovered the gate, which she had never seen before despite her wanderings.

And she had seen the carriage drive away and had experienced the greatest frustration and despair of her life.

How was she to tell anyone? she thought as she hurried back in the direction of the house. Henrietta would doubtless have told some plausible story to account for the absence of Anna and Joy so that for many hours no one would even realize that they were missing. How was she, Emily, to convey that message? And even if she could, even if someone understood and believed her, how could she tell anyone where he had taken them?