Royal Regard (40 page)

“No,” Nick said with no inflection. “Of
course you had to come.” He took a second look at the maid,
wondering where he had seen her, sure it was not at the Huntleigh
house, but there could be no worse time to start asking meddlesome
questions.

Michelle clearly wasn’t sure if she should
keep speaking, mouth open, but emitting no comment, so he prodded,
“Yes?”

“Your Grace, if you will forgive, I had not
meant to hear, you understand, but it is best you do not come with
Madame
. There have been… insinuations. It will be best to
give no one reason to think poorly of her.”

Nick agreed, “You are right, of course.”

Bella hissed, “Who has been—”

“
Madame
, we must go now.”

Blakeley motioned to Bella and Michelle,
preparing to lead them to the front door.

Nick waved them all away, and as their
footsteps grew faint down the hall, Nick called quietly, under his
breath, expecting and receiving no response, “Anything you need,
Bella. Anything at all.” He watched out the window as they strode
to a town coach halfway down the street.

He walked heavily to the sideboard, feeling
twice his age, and Blakeley had already returned and was pouring a
brandy.

“We have gin?”

“Of course, Sir.” Blakeley found it after a
search and poured. “Might I say…?”

“Yes?”

“You did ask, should this occasion present
itself, I remind you of your last encounter with Old Tom.”

“Did I?” Nick raised an eyebrow. “Was I
drunk?”

“As a wheelbarrow, Sir.”

“Then we shall take no notice of such a
foolish request.” He reached for the glass.

As he handed his employer the gin much more
slowly than Nick would prefer, Blakeley tried once more: “Sir,
might I just point out, you heard your brother yourself. He did
stipulate I should—”

“You may point out nothing. Especially
anything my brother had to say about my drunkenness. I prefer gin
to brandy tonight, even if I have to go to Seven Dials to find it.
Anything you have stocked in my cupboard must be better than the
flash-of-lightning I would find there, and I shan’t leave the house
before tomorrow, in any case.”

He downed the drink in one swallow and held
out the glass. “Another, please. Three fingers. And pour yourself
something. We will recall our various adventures tonight, beginning
with the story I will finally have from you: how you kept the
riverboat gambler from killing me in New Orleans. No, Blakeley, I
insist. I prefer not to think of myself as so piteous I must drink
alone.”

“
Madame
, the carriage is
this way.”

Michelle led her to a waiting town coach. Not
a broken-down hack, but neither the crested landau and horses she
had purchased, displaying the brand-new coat of arms the earl had
been granted, nor the curricle Myron kept for his personal use or
the phaeton for hers. Nor was there a footman to help her into the
carriage, and the coachman just sat atop the box facing forward,
not even touching the brim of his hat. Focused only on those
questions associated with her husband’s demise, however, she
climbed in the door when Michelle let down the step. Her maid
followed, and they were off.

Bella tried, with the quickening pace of her
toe tapping, to drive the coach forward faster, to already be home,
past this feeling of being in a world separate from any of the
people crowding the London streets. The sounds of street sellers
and the ever-present smell of city sewage seeped through the padded
door and around the edges of the covered window. Bella reached for
the oil lamp, not willing to invite sunshine into such a black day,
mostly out of guilt that her behavior had turned it so. The lamps,
though, were empty: wicks, oil, and glass shades removed. So she
sat in the dark.

Myron would be so distressed to think of her
closeted with Wellbridge during his last hours. Bella should have
been at his bedside offering succor, not a base betrayal. She could
never see Wellbridge again. She could never allow anyone to think
that she would—

Her actions were unthinkable.

She wrapped her arms around her middle,
trying to warm herself against the cold air whipping into the
carriage around the ill-fitting doors. Wherever Michelle had
acquired the conveyance, it had not been designed for the comfort
of a countess.

“Have you brought my black?”

“
Non, Madame
. I did not stop to think
of mourning clothes, only to retrieve you before questions could be
asked.”

Bella paled. “Yes, quite right. Thank you for
that. I can change my dress once we are home.” She bent over
slightly, trying to relieve the pain in her chest and the upset in
her stomach, swaying against the rocking of the coach. “Does
anyone—”

“
Madame
Jemison was to send for Lady
Firthley, and the doctor is attending Lord Huntleigh.”

Michelle moved to the seat next to Bella and
gently turned her. The maid took out a hairbrush and, even with the
coach rumbling, managed to arrange Bella’s hair in a simple
twist.

“I have explained you are shopping, and have
brought a selection of items which you may present as your
purchases.” She indicated a closed basket on the back-facing seat.
“As I have only brought them home this morning, they have not been
seen by any who might betray you.”

She was lucky to have such an astute maid,
Bella thought, but continued deception relied on Bella’s ability to
lie, which had never been her strong suit. Charlotte could make
anyone believe anything, but Bella had never learned how.

The coach slowed, then stopped. “We are here
already?” Bella asked, voice as small as her sense of honor,
wanting more than anything to avoid the censure she would face when
everyone found out she had been—

“
Oui, Madame,
we have reached our
destination.”

Her hands shook at the thought of preparing
her husband’s shroud. Surely a countess could order the task
carried out by someone else.

Bella stood, head bent to clear the ceiling,
and rattled the latch on the door, but it held firm. The blind over
the window only opened an inch before it stuck, but that was enough
to see it had gone dark, as though they were indoors, and no tiger
had appeared from the boot to help her out.

Michelle scrambled out of the coach on the
other side, slamming the door in Bella’s face. When Bella was
finally able to force the shade open and looked out of the window,
she saw a brick wall, close enough to the carriage that she
couldn’t open the door and jump out. A key turned in a lock
opposite her, just before the carriage started moving again.

“Michelle! What is happening?! Where—?! My
husband is—”

A sharp turn sent Bella flying backward
against the unforgiving door lock, a sharp pain screaming in her
shoulder and the back of her neck. She was still conscious, facing
the back end of the coach, dizzy, but she ascertained no bones were
broken nor muscles torn. She would not be impeded by any
irreparable injuries.

Bella seated herself safely on the facing
seat, staring into the horrible depths of God’s judgment for her
depravity with Wellbridge.

Mind jumping from fear to dread to panic, she
had no control of her hands trembling, teeth grinding, knees
shaking. Her husband was dead, and she was being carted around all
over London in an unmarked, locked coach for some unexplained,
likely nefarious, purpose, with no weapon on her person. Nothing
good was going to come of this.

And everything was entirely her fault.

At that thought, her hands dropped like lead
weights at her sides, not even grasping at other possible
explanations.

The coach stopped again, once more in a
narrow alleyway, the locks no more yielding. Until the door rattled
and she was nearly yanked out of the carriage when it swung
open.

Like a bad dream she should have predicted,
Malbourne shoved her backward onto the floor, taking up all of the
doorway and much of the small, enclosed space. She scrambled back
into the corner, not even rising to take a seat on the bench,
finally whimpering when her shoulder hit the opposite side of the
carriage, much as her retreat had been stopped by the tree trunk a
few nights before.

He slammed the door once inside, turned a key
in a hidden lock, and pocketed it. Dragging her none too gently off
the floor, he banged his fist on the roof, then slid onto the seat
right next to her, boxing her in. The more she tried to make
herself small, the larger he loomed.

“What do you want? What are you doing
here?”

“I want you,
ma chère
, ugly as you
are.”

He ran the back of his index finger down her
cheek, and when she turned to bite him, he pulled back and slapped
her face so hard her head hit the padded squabs. The rusted iron
taste of blood flowed into her cheek, quickly swallowed as she
gulped back a scream. The smell of bergamot, which a week ago
teased her senses and incited fascination, would now, ever after,
give her nightmares.

“Have I not made my interest known all these
weeks you have forced me to dance attendance on you, as though you
were worthy of the attentions of a duke?”

She shook her head, attempting to clear, or
at least logically arrange, the massing confusion. There was no
time to waste on silly questions, and she refused to be a
feather-headed chit wringing her handkerchief and waiting for
rescue.

She tried to insert a measure of Charlotte’s
command into her tone, but her voice was even smaller than the
space he had left for her crumpled lungs. “I demand you take me to
my husband!”

Malbourne’s ducal tone outranked her without
even trying. “You have no husband. But never fear, you shall not be
without for long.”

“What are you—?” She was starting to believe
this really was a nightmare, and one chock-a-block with silly
questions. “How do you know Myron is—? Oh, good God. Michelle.
Michelle.”

“So, you begin to understand.”

Just barely beginning, Bella suspected.
Malbourne must be somehow controlling Michelle, most likely by
money or blackmail, and had carefully planned this abduction. If
not, he wouldn’t have acted so dreadfully at Vauxhall. He would
still have been trying to charm her into compliance, rather than
doing his best to ruin her to force his suit.

“Before the sun rises, you will board a ship
with me to France, and while at sea, we will be married.”

“Married? Are you mad?”

“Such a ceremony is not entirely correct
before God or man, but the priest I have acquired, he will confirm
the banns and vow we have joined together in the True Church before
we left England. Once we have reached the Vosges, there will be no
question you are
une Duchesse de France
. Whether or not you
survive the journey.”

“Whether or not I—What do you—”

“
Ma petite
, you make much of your
intelligence, but I see none in evidence. Must I train you to
listen when your husband speaks?”

“You will not be my husband. I would not
marry you to save myself starving to death!”

“Ah, but yes, my sweet, you will.”

She pulled her hand back to slap him, but he
caught her wrist and held it like a shackle. “You will board a ship
at my direction and become my
duchesse
, not such a miserable
life,
je t’assure
, or you will board one bound for the white
slave markets in Africa. Travelled as you are, I am certain you
understand the life of a woman of your complexion sold at auction
in Carthage or Maghreb.” The color drained from her face. “Yes, I
see that you do. I suggest, my dear, you consider very well the
choices you have before you.”

He leaned down smoothly, as though he would
adjust the fit of his boot, and before she could even think to
fight him off, he attached an iron ring and short chain around her
left ankle, bolted to the floor. He didn’t follow with any
additional restraints; he didn’t need to.

She had no weapons. Anything she could
accomplish with her hands or fingernails would only be painful
enough to make him angry. He was too big to fight off indefinitely,
even if she had the use of all her limbs. Now, the way her foot was
bound, she couldn’t use her knee to disable him, and even if she
could, there was no way to escape the carriage without finding the
keys he had secreted somewhere on his person. Then she would have
to jump out of a town coach running at speed. Her mind went
completely blank, but for the realization that she was the only
person in this carriage in danger of dying.

Once she was secured, he ran his hand up
under her dress, leaving her cuffed leg bared and his clammy hand
on her inner thigh, but made no further move toward her abasement.
She did her best to hide the shudder through her body, but it was
impossible. At her involuntary movement, his hand tightened its
grip.