Taken by the Wicked Rake (5 page)

He stood facing her, just as she had suspected, arms folded across his chest. “I am waiting.”

She shut the door in defeat. To disobey him might mean disaster. And he was right in one thing, at least. She was tired and dirty, and her clothing was cold and wet. The beautiful gown of white net that she had worn to the ball was little better than a rag. She was even more miserable than she might be if she removed it.

She glanced around the wagon. What was she to wear instead? Did he mean to bring her replacements? Or was it just an elaborate ruse to make her bare herself? She was shivering as she fumbled with the closures on her ball gown. She dropped it and the muddy, torn petticoats into a heap on the floor, and then bundled them up, and opened the door a crack, pushing them out toward the Gypsy.

His hand appeared in the crack in the door, and he opened it wider, but did not look in. “The rest, as well.”

“Most certainly not.”

“The stays, the shift. Stockings and shoes–” he paused, “–shoe, rather. You left one behind already. Remove them, or I shall.”

She slammed the door, and shouted through the wood. “Bastard!” And was surprised by the sound of her own voice.

He laughed in response. “An accurate assessment of my parentage. But unusual to hear it from such ladylike lips. Perhaps it was the gown alone that gave you the air of gentility. Who knows what you shall be like, when you wear nothing but skin?”

“
You
certainly shall not.”

He laughed again. “You are right in that. I must leave you alone for the day. And I will not have you thinking that, when I am gone, you can turn my people against me or make a daring escape cross country. You will find it difficult to do, if you must walk through the camp dressed as nature intended, with not even shoes for protection.”

“You mean to leave me…” She swallowed.

“Better than not leaving you alone, while in that condition. Unless you prefer…”

For the second time in her life, she cursed aloud.

He laughed again. “I thought not. You will be perfectly safe, shut up in the wagon. No one will trouble you. No one would dare.” There was a darkness in his tone that made her sure of the truth. And then, the smile was back in his voice. “And if you are good, and behave yourself in my absence? Then I shall return some of your clothing to you this evening.”

“You will return my own things to me as a reward?” She cursed him again.

He laughed again. “Not if you act in that way. Now, remove the rest. Or…” He let the last word hang in the air, and she reached for the laces. When she had another small pile of clothes before her, she hid herself behind the door, opened it a crack and forced the things out of the wagon, then quickly slammed the door again.

There was a moment of silence, and then the Gypsy said, “All seems to be in order. My bed might not be to your liking, but it is the best I mean to offer. I suggest you avail yourself of it. I will return later in the day.”

And then, she heard no more.

Chapter Three

Stephano stood perfectly still in the bedroom of his London home on Bloomsbury Square, under going the transformation from Gypsy back to gentleman. His valet, Munch, cast aside a wrinkled strip of linen and started with a fresh cravat. “If you insist on starting again…”

Stephano muttered, eager to be getting on to his appointment. He had wasted hours in the night, traipsing around the countryside to befuddle the Carlow girl as to their location. And now, the delivery of the ransom demand had been complicated by Robert Veryan’s unexpected flight to London.

“If you are going to Keddinton’s office, then the knot must be perfect.” Munch’s flat voice came out of an equally flat face, and often left people expecting a man of limited dexterity or intelligence. But his thick fingers did not fumble as he tied the fresh knot, nor did his perception of the situation. “You cannot expect the man to take you seriously, if you treat him otherwise. And you cannot afford to show weakness, even something as small as a wilted cravat.”

“True, I suppose. But damn the man for spoiling my morning. I had hoped to be done with this business before break fast, so that I might have a decent meal and a little sleep. Now, it will take the better part of the day. It is easier to appear strong when I am rested.”

His friend and butler, Akshat, waited patiently at his right hand. “How are you feeling this morning, Stephen Sahib?”

In truth, he felt better than he had expected, after a sleepless night and several hours in the saddle. “The headache is not so bad today. After a cup of your special tea, I shall feel almost normal.”

Akshat had anticipated his request, and was stirring the special herbs that were the closest thing to a remedy for the incessant pounding in his skull. If it could keep him clear-headed for just a few more days, he had hopes that the curse would be ended, and the headache would go with it.

He drank the proffered tea, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a new man. Or his old self, perhaps. He was no longer sure. But he knew it was Stephen Hebden the jewel merchant who was reflected in the cheval glass, as he brushed at an imaginary speck of lint on the flawless black wool. When a member of the gentry needed some one to dispose of the family diamonds, or find a jeweller to produce a paste copy of something that had been lost at hazard – or forgotten in a mistress’s bed – there was none better than Mr Hebden to handle the thing. He was discreet, scrupulously honest, and always seemed to be where he was needed, when he was needed. It said much to his knowledge of the lives of his customers.

He grinned at himself in the mirror. And if one had business of a less scrupulous nature, Mr Hebden could always count on Salterton. And then, of course, there was the Gypsy, Beshaley. Robert Veryan had dealt with all three, at one time or another. And while the servants at Bloomsbury Square were quite used to Mr Stephen’s unusual ways, Veryan found it quite upsetting to get visits from a man who could not be filed easily for future reference. Today, he would use the old man’s unease to good advantage.

Stephano glanced again at the cut of his coat. What do you think, Munch? Sombre enough to visit a viscount?”

The Indian grinned at him, and Munch said, “Sombre enough to attend the funeral of one.”

“Very good. When one means to be as serious as death, one might as well dress the part.” And the severity of the tailoring did much to clear his head of distractions for the difficult day ahead. Although he had not expected to make a trip to London for his inter view with Keddinton, he would almost have deemed the kidnap a success. But he had underestimated his captive, and his reaction to her.

He resisted the urge to pull apart Munch’s carefully tied cravat while at tempting to cool the heat in his blood. He had been watching the girl from a distance for weeks, convinced she was no different from a dozen other Society misses. She was lovely, of course. But a trifle less outgoing than her peers. And more malleable of opinion, if her reaction to the people around her was any indication. She seemed to follow more than she led, and she did it with so little complaint that he wondered if she was perhaps a bit slow of wit.

A deficiency of that sort would explain her tepid reaction to the gentlemen who courted her. When the men she had spurned were away from female company and felt ungentlemanly enough to comment on her, they shook their heads in disgust and announced that, although her pedigree was excellent, the girl was not quite right. Though their suits had met with approval from her father, Earl of Narborough, and her brother, Viscount Stanegate, they had been received by the lady with blank disinterest and a polite “No, thank you.” It was almost as if the girl did not understand the need to marry, or the obligation to marry well.

When he had planned her abduction, Stephano had expected to have little trouble with her. Either she would go willingly into the garden because she lacked the sense not to, or she would retreat to the retiring room and he would take her in the back hall.

But he had imagined her frightened to passivity, not fighting him each step of the way. He had not expected her to work free of her bonds, nor thought her capable of tearing her virginal white ball gown to shreds in her attempt to escape.

Nor had he expected the lusciousness of the body that the dress had hidden. Or how her eyes had turned from green to golden brown as he’d held her. Or the way those changeable eyes had watched him undress. When he had planned the abduction, he had not expected to want her.

He looked again at his sober reflection in the mirror, and put aside his thoughts of sins of the flesh. While the lust that she inspired in him might have been a pleasant surprise, he did not have the time or inclination to act on it. It was an unnecessary complication if the plan was to hold her honour hostage to gain her family’s cooperation.

When he arrived at Lord Keddinton’s London home a short time later, he pushed his way past the butler, assuring the poor man that an appointment was unnecessary: Robert Veryan was always at home to him.

Keddinton sat at the desk in his office, a look of alarm on his pasty face. “Hebden. Is it wise to visit in daylight?”

Stephano stared down at the cowardly little man. “Was it wise to run back to London so soon after the disappearance of your guest? You should have taken the time to look for the girl, before declaring her irretrievable.”

“I– I– I felt that the family must be told, in person, of what had occurred.” The man’s eyes shifted nervously along with his story.

“You thought to outrun me, more like. By coming here, you deviated from the instructions I set out for you. You were to await my message to you, and then you were to deliver it. It was most inconvenient for me to have to follow you here. Inconvenient, but by no means difficult.”

When Keddinton offered no further explanation, Stephano dropped the package he had brought onto the desk in front of him. “You will take this to Carlow.”

The man ignored his order and said, “The girl. Is she still safe? Because you took her from my house.”

“Exactly as you knew I would,” Stephano reminded him calmly. “We agreed on the method and location, before I took any action.”

Keddinton’s breathing was shallow, as though now that the deed was done, he was a scant inch from panic. “She was supposed to be in my care. And if the Carlows realize that it was I who recommended Lord Salterton to my wife…”

“You will tell them you had no idea that the man was a problem, and that you are not even sure he was the one who took her. Her absence was not discovered until late in the evening, was it? And others had departed by that time, as well. I took care that no one saw me leaving. The corridor and the grounds were empty, as you’d promised they would be.”

“But still…” Keddinton seemed to be searching for a problem where none existed.

“Thinking of your own skin, are you?” Stephen wondered who the bigger villain might be, George Carlow, or Veryan for his easy betrayal of his old friend.

And worse, that it would happen at the expense of an innocent girl… It had been difficult for Stephano to reconcile himself to his own part in the crime. He had not stuck at kidnapping women before. But it had never ended well for him. He was almost guar an teed a headache so strong that he would be too sick to move for several days. His late mother might still want her vengeance, but it was as though she punished him for the dishonourable acts she pushed him to commit.

But though his head might feel better today, it turned his stomach at how easy it had been to persuade Verity Carlow’s god father to help in her abduction.

Keddinton opened the package in front of him, and went even paler when he recognized the contents. It was a chemise, embroidered at the throat with the initials V C, and tied tightly about the waist with red silk rope.

He looked up at Stephen with alarm. “My God, Hebden. You didn’t…”

“Touch the girl?” Stephano laughed in response. “Certainly not. She is worth more to me as a virgin hostage, than she is as some temporary plaything.” But the image of the girl sprang to his mind, sprawled upon his bed with her skirts ripped near to the waist to give a tantalizing glimpse of her silk-covered legs. “Since you are so quick to search the package I intended for another, then you had best read the attached note.” He quoted from memory. “Your daughter is safe, for now. If you wish her to return the same, then admit in public what you have done.”

“But is this–” he poked at the chemise and shuddered in distaste, “–is this necessary? Surely you did not need to be quite so theatrical.”

“Theatrical?” He laughed again. “I have made both the Carlows and the Wardales shake in their beds for months, each one worrying that they would get a bit of rope in the mail. All because of a curse that would have no hold over them, if they did not secretly believe that they were deserving of punishment. And now, because I have sent you a lady’s undergarment, you think that I am developing a taste for the theatrical?” He could still feel the softness of the garment, as he’d tied it up, and the softness of the girl that had worn it. He felt the pounding in his head begin again, as he thought of the girl, naked in the wagon, waiting for his return. If he truly wanted revenge, it would be so very easy. And so very pleasurable. He laughed louder. But the sound did nothing to stop the lurid thoughts in his head or the agony they brought with them.

Then, as if one pain would stop another, he grabbed the letter opener from Keddinton’s desk, and dragged the blade of it along his palm until a line of red appeared there. He held his hand out over the shift, watching the drops of crimson fall onto the muslin. He made a fist, and squeezed it shut, until his mind cared about nothing but its own pain and the sharp sting of the open cut.

Then he looked up at Robert Veryan, as the blood continued to drip from his hand. “This, you snivelling coward, is what a taste for the dramatic looks like. Tell your friend, the murderer Carlow, that for now it is my own blood that was spilled. But if he does not accede to my demands, then the next package will be soaked in his daughter’s blood. Can you manage that, without running away again?” He leaned over the desk and watched the older man shrink away from him. It was as easy as it had ever been to intimidate him into obedience.