Romancing the Rogue (144 page)

10 June 1813

Graeme Markwythe, Duke of Wyndham

She paused and lifted the pen. She’d no idea how to address her stepbrother. She’d held him in contempt for so long, thought of him as Markwythe because she didn’t want the familial intimacy of calling him by his Christian name and refused to give him the respect of his social rank.

Dear stepbrother,

I have it on good authority that you are aware I sent my maid to your home in my stead. I beg you, do not take out your ire on her. Juliet was merely doing my bidding. The responsibility for everything is mine.

Again she paused. Her words were terribly inadequate. She really needed to speak with Markwythe — Grey — in person as well. But first, she needed to ensure Juliet’s safety.

“I’m so sorry, Juliet,” she whispered, setting the pen in the griffin’s claw. “I’ve not been a good friend.”

As she drew her hand back, she brushed against the inkwell and it toppled. Dark gobs of ink sprayed through the air and landed on a stack of papers off to the side.

“Oh, dear!” Annabella jumped up and snatched the papers before the spreading puddle of black could damage them any further.

As she set them up onto the writing dais, her printed name caught her eye.

“My marriage lines!” She frowned. “How did they get here?”

Spilled ink quite forgotten, she sat again and picked up one of the other papers. As she read, anger crept in and stained the edges of her vision, hindering her ability to see the words, but selected phrases leapt at her from the paper.
…secure a marriage… suitable bride… well-bred.

Seething, she rifled through the remainder of the papers. She stared at the substantial sum of money listed as her husband’s inheritance, to be delivered to him upon his proof of suitable marriage. Marrying her had made her husband a very rich man. She pulled out her marriage lines again and stared in horror.

He used me…

A tear rolled down her cheek and landed on her maiden name, dissolving the letters into oblivion.

Jon whistled a
sea tune as he tromped along the lane back to Blackmoor Hall. Home — at least for the moment — and Annabella awaited him. Fresh off the victory of saving not only the ewe but also her twin lambs, Jon considered the likelihood of persuading Annabella to dine alone with him in their suite. He sniffed at his shirt and grimaced at the pungent scent. After he bathed away the grime of the lambing, that was. They would enjoy one another’s company, talk. She would explain why she was in possession of a great deal of money, and it would be such a simple reason they would laugh over it.

Yes, the evening ahead held promise.

He stepped from the canopy of the woods and onto the drive up to Blackmoor and felt the grin tugging his mouth upward. Mayhap something could be made of the bath as well.

At the sound of a horse nickering, Jon brought his head up in surprise. A shiny curricle stood near the end of the drive, its top folded back, a pair of dark horses stomping in the dust as they swished their tails lazily over one another.

Irritation flashed, his steps faltered, and his lighthearted grin became a scowl. The gentleman from the other day paying a return call, perhaps? Why had he parked the carriage so far from Blackmoor Hall?

Resigned to the fact that bathing would be delayed, Jon continued up the drive. This time, his uninvited guest would find himself received with
out
the benefit of Jon making himself decent.

Whoosh
… Something blew past his right ear.
Thud
.

“What the devil?” Jon swung around and looked behind him. The arrow rose from the ground where it had embedded itself, dark and deadly. The black fletching Gran preferred fluttered in the gentle breeze.

Blast the pair of them! They must be shooting from the battlement again.

He held up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare and squinted at the north tower. There it was! A faint movement, a flash of pink and white.

Jon waved his arms frantically over his head and called out. “Hallo! Annabella! Gran! Hold up a bit.” He stepped up his pace, muttering, “I’m not the ruddy French.”

Whoosh
. The arrow passed him on the left that time and landed flat in the dust. As he shied away from it, his hat tumbled to the ground. “Have a care!” bellowed Jon, and then he cursed under his breath as another arrow sailed over his head.

“Suitable bride?” Annabella screeched from the tower. The shrill sound rode over him, swallowed up by the woods behind.

Suitable bride?
Oh, heavens, she’d somehow managed to find the paperwork regarding Grandfather’s will. “Annabella…” He shaded his eyes again, struggling to see her. “Obviously we need to—”

“Well-bred!” she exploded. Another arrow flew over his head. “Am I a broodmare?”

“It’s not like tha — Egad!” He leaped backward as another arrow sank into the ground in front of him. “Stop shooting!”

“I found your grandfather’s bloody will!” she shrieked.

“Yes, so I gathered.” With his hat somewhere in the dirt behind him, Jon narrowed his eyes and weaved his head back and forth trying to see her. Where would the next shot come from? Any second, he expected his head to explode from a direct hit.

“Do you get even more if I manage to produce a
suitable
heir?”

Thump
. Another arrow bit into the ground at his feet.

“Or will you somehow have to return some of your precious inheritance should I give birth to a
daughter
?”

The image of his wife round with their child teased, providing a lovely distraction — until an arrow grazed his shoulder, thankfully taking nothing but a bit of wool from his favorite coat.

Time to end this foolishness!

Jon bolted for the castle, dodging arrows until he was no longer within the line of fire. He yanked open the front door, surprising a footman in the hallway. Jon waved him off and made a left turn along the corridor that led to the tower. He took the steps on the dim spiral staircase two at a time and burst onto the battlement, blinking, dazed by the slant of late afternoon sunlight.

Gran stood facing him, arms crossed over her chest. Shaking her head, she subjected him to an intense glare.

She was alone.

“Where’s Annabella? Why did you let her shoot at me? She might have killed me.”

Gran waved a hand dismissively. “Oh that’s rot. The girl can’t hit a thing from up here. Never has been able to.”

Jon flexed his fingers, realizing he was getting a good sense of exactly what had made his grandfather so frustrated for most of his married life. “Where. Is. My.
Wife?
”

His grandmother snorted. “Wife? Are you certain of that?”

Jon’s blood flashed molten and rushed to his face. “She’s my wife,” he ground out. “And I’m looking for her. We’ve had a — misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding? My dear boy, in order to understand or misunderstand something, one must first be
told
something.” She leaned forward, one eye narrowed. “Didn’t I warn you to stop lying?”

“I wasn’t lying,” he ground out. A sigh escaped, and he raked a hand through his hair. “I was going to talk with her today, but Houghton had problems with an ewe and — I am
not
discussing this with
you
.” He turned and stalked back to the door before he throttled his meddling old grandmother.

Annabella couldn’t have been far ahead of him. She’d obviously known he’d be coming after her and likely had taken the servants’ corridor to avoid him. Jon slapped the stone wall as he retraced his steps along the spiral staircase. He should have foreseen that. His maddening wife had a habit of running away like a flushed rabbit.

His boots clumped on the hardwood as he raced along the narrow, dingy hallway. When he burst into the kitchen, he knew he’d been right. Cook regarded him with wariness but not even a smitch of surprise. Most of the staff kept their heads down, focused on their tasks.

He pushed open the door on the opposite end of the long kitchen and set his course for the stairs. Cool air whispered over his face as he passed the back door, and he drew up short. The door stood ajar by a mere inch or two.

As though someone had been in too big a hurry to close it properly.

Abruptly, he changed direction. The bright sun once more dazzled his eyes, but he kept walking, reasonably certain she was heading for the archery range. With his next step, his foot brushed against something sticklike.

Her bow? Well, she’d not get much shooting in without that… He smirked. Nor would she be able to keep firing on
him
. He scooped the bow up and kept walking, but he slowed again at the sight of an arrow lying in the grass. Puzzled, he picked that up as well.

Annabella’s voice came to him from a distance, raised and angry.

Nice to know he’d been correct in his deduction.

He heard her voice again, a bit more distant, then her shriek of rage. Something was amiss. The sound hadn’t come from the range. Rather, it seemed she had gone toward the front of the castle.

“Looking to finish me off, Lady Seabrook?” he muttered, changing direction yet again.

As he rounded the side of the castle, heading toward the front, he nearly stumbled over her quiver. Several arrows had spilled out the top.

But it was the bit of blue — slashed across the lawn like a scar — that slowed his steps. Annabella’s fan. She’d taken care with it ever since he’d angrily handed it back to her in Coventry. He couldn’t imagine her being so enraged as to throw it down… especially not when he knew what it meant to her.

“Let me go!” came her shrill bellow.

The carriage. The visitor who had left without being seen earlier that week. His vanishing wife. Her angry screams.

Jon’s mind whirled as his heart first rose to his throat for several beats then sank into his stomach. “Someone’s got her.”

Still clutching Annabella’s bow, he snatched up her quiver and a couple of the arrows then took off in the direction of her cries at a flat-out run. Whoever dared lay a hand on his wife would live to regret it.

As he passed a row of gorse bushes, he spotted the curricle in the distance. Why hadn’t he paid more attention? A legitimate visitor wouldn’t have left his carriage so far from the door.

Annabella screamed and thrashed in the stranger’s arms. As he attempted to bundle her into the carriage seat, she stomped his foot. Her abductor howled, and she managed to break free. But he only grabbed a fistful of her hair and hauled her backward.

Her cry of agony cut Jon to the bone. Rage lent him a surge of energy, and he redoubled his effort to reach her.

He would be too late. Her abductor was already climbing into the carriage. It lurched forward before he even sat, as the horses took off.

Fool!
At that headlong run, the carriage would surely tip over when it got to the turn by the bridge. Jon’s gaze strayed to the edge of the woods, to the path he and Annabella had used in the rainstorm. He hit the trail hard, uncaring of the branches clawing at his face, snagging his coat. Somehow, he managed to hold onto the bow and quiver while he shrugged out of his coat on the run.

How many precious seconds had he lost? He possessed no sense of time as he plowed through the underbrush, relying on instinct to make it through the twists and turns, everything no more than a blur of green and gray. Only divine intervention kept the thorny bushes from poking out his eyes.

As he raced through the woods, one thought filled his mind.
Annabella
. He had to get to her.

He exploded from the forest onto the peaceful lane at the top of a small hill. Each breath was like drawing in fire as he stood panting like a dog that had run a mile. His mouth tasted of metal, and his teeth tingled. His trembling muscles burned. The side of his face stung. He pushed the discomforts from his mind as he concentrated on listening over his gasps for breath.

A small animal rustled at his feet. Overhead a magpie cried out. But what he didn’t hear beat at his nerves. No plop of horses’ hooves in the dirt, no whispered grind of carriage wheels.

He was too late. Jon’s knees buckled.

“Stop! Let me go, you—”

Annabella!

And finally the sound of movement coming toward him. No time for relief! Drawing several deep breaths, Jon set an arrow in the bow and leapt from the brush into the center of the road just as the carriage crested the rise. The horses veered to the right, and the carriage skidded sideways until it slammed against a boulder.

In the carriage seat, Annabella took advantage of the jolt and scrambled for the side, but her abductor clamped a hand over her arm and twisted until she cried out and sat, half pulled over his lap.

“Unhand my wife!” Jon raised the arrow.

Annabella renewed her fight, swiping at her captor’s face with clawed fingers.

The occupants of the curricle became a blur of motion. If Jon shot, he risked striking Annabella. If he dropped the bow and joined the skirmish, he lost the advantage of a weapon.

“Enough!” he roared, holding steady aim.

The stranger delivered a backhand to Annabella’s face then rose awkwardly to his feet, pulling her in front of him like a shield.

Coward.

At the flash of steel glinting against her throat, Jon hardened himself against his visceral reaction.

“We seem to be at an impasse,” crowed the stranger boldly. “Though I daresay I have a
bit
of advantage. Seeing as I hold someone you treasure.”

Jon met the bleak dark eyes with a jolt. “Dawes! What do you want with my wife?”

Dawes wheezed out a laugh. “Your wife… I wonder if you know just how…
impressive
a move that was. Lady Annabella has been dodging suitors for years.”

Annabella jerked in his grasp, but Dawes tightened his grip around her waist and resettled the edge of the blade more firmly against her throat. With a wince, she stopped moving.

“By all accounts I’ve heard, you’ve had a devil of a time controlling your wife, Seabrook.” Dawes said in a silky tone. He squeezed Annabella’s middle, eliciting a squeak. “Perhaps she needs a firmer hand.”

Jon kept the arrow pointed at Grey’s estate steward. “What do you want, Dawes? I find it hard to believe you came all this way to kidnap Lady Seabrook.”

Dawes turned his head slightly, sniffed Annabella’s neck as though she were a delicate spring flower. “No? You don’t think she’s worth my effort?” A cold smile settled across his face. Then he laughed. “I’ve come for some property that was stolen from me. A particularly large sum of banknotes. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about them, would you?”

“Did you happen to look around Blackmoor Hall, Dawes? Does it appear to you as if I need any pathetic funds you’ve managed to accrue?” Jon’s eyes flicked to Annabella. If he’d had any lingering doubt as to her involvement, the bewildered horror in her eyes would have wiped it away.

“You?” she asked.

Dawes chuckled. “It took me some years to gather that amount. You should have stayed out of the cottage, away from things that don’t belong to you.” He bent his knees, forcing Annabella into a stoop. “Pick up the reins, Lady Annabella. Your new husband is going to step aside and let us pass. And when he brings my property to the Goose and Boar, he can have you back.”

Annabella leveled her gaze upon Jon, panic flaring in her green eyes. “The banknotes belong to my stepbrother. I think Dawes has been stealing for some time, and even if you give him the money, he’ll still—”

Her face paled as Dawes pressed the knife deeper. A tiny droplet of blood bubbled at the tip. Jon cursed under his breath. He had no clear shot.