A momentary fear shot through Callum’s veins as he remembered something important. He looked forward of his left knee and his heart dropped. The bag with his mother’s heirloom was gone. He knew it could not have simply fallen from his saddle, he had secured it there himself with a leather cord tied in series of knots. No, it had to have been removed, perhaps during the fighting with those men.
“You!” Callum said, turning slightly to look at the woman. “You took my bag! Where is it?”
Although the binding prevented her from answering, he could see that she was confused by his accusation. Clearly she didn’t have it with her, but she might have passed it to one of the other thieves before he’d grabbed her. Still, her expression looked both insulted and unaware.
“Guard, please ride as fast as you can. Return to the place of our unfortunate stop and see if you can find my travel bag. It contains a priceless heirloom, and I must have it back!” he called out.
One of the guards immediately turned back and urged his horse into a run. Together they galloped as fast as they might, but watching them go, Callum already knew in his bones that they would be unsuccessful.
“Tis no matter,” he said softly, turning once again to speak to the woman over his shoulder. “I’ll have it back, one way or another. You’ll be my prisoner until I see it again.”
A small shriek of anger sounded from behind the woman’s gag, but Callum ignored her. He prodded the horse to move again, all while fighting the urge to scream in rage and anguish as he thought of losing the one thing his mother had personally entrusted him with.
By evening, they returned to Bellton. The one footman, as Callum had suspected, had been unsuccessful in locating the missing bag. Moreover, the thieves were long gone, and Callum spared a brief second of remorse for the woman. What kind of compatriots would abandon the weakest member of their group, especially after using her so roughly as a decoy? Did she mean nothing to any of them that they could wash their hands off her and leave her to whatever fate awaited her?
That’s no concern of yours, Callum reminded himself. Your only concern is the retrieval of your property. And this woman might be the key.
He had little hope that he could find the thieves again and bargain with them. After all, if they cared so little as to follow the woman—nay, hardly more than a girl now that he saw her in the fading light of approaching dusk—or to remain in the place where she’d been taken, then they were probably not inclined to give him back the hairpiece in exchange for her freedom.
“Take her inside and lock her in one of the rooms downstairs. Place a guard outside her door and see to it that she has something to eat,” Callum said, sliding off his horse and issuing the order before striding away without a glance in her direction.
The butler issued directions to the staff who’d assembled outside, but it was Barclay who hurried forward to say something.
“My Lord, that woman you’ve brought here,” he began, looking over Callum’s shoulder nervously. “She attempted to rob our carriage!”
“Is that so?” Callum asked eagerly. “Did you happen to see anyone with her?”
“Yes, quite a few alarming looking individuals. She pretended to be hungry and begging along the road, but she stood in front of our horses and refused to move aside. Just as several other men appeared from their hiding places, the driver struck her with the butt of his whip and called out to the horses to drive on.”
“That explains the mark upon her forehead,” Callum muttered. “I only wish the blow had been hard enough to deter her from any further crimes. Do you think you might identify these men if they’re found?”
“Quite certain, My Lord,” Barclay said, straightening up and looking confident.
“Good. I’ll seek assistance in locating them, although I don’t hold out much hope. For now, our best course will be that someone in their lot decides they miss this wretch after all!”
The ride to Bellton had been painful, to say the least, although Beatrix would cut out her own tongue before she ever gave that pompous frilly boy the satisfaction of knowing that. Still, it was some small measure of relief to be off that blasted horse and safely on solid ground again.
Safe might be the wrong word, though. Beatrix took in her surroundings, trying not to gape like a dead carp at the opulent house with its wide front veranda atop a double set of stone stairs. An ornate reflecting pool nestled between the staircases shone back the lights from within the house’s three tiers of windows, more than Beatrix could count in one glance.
Beneath her feet, chipped marble pebbles formed the wide pathway from the gate to the house. Even in the dimness of evening she could see that the path broke off and wound around either side of the house, presumably to the gardens in the rear. She dared not even imagine what those gardens might look like. A hedge maze? A playing field? Tables set out for tea on the lawn after a game of bowling?
Beatrix shook her head. Of course one who lived in such dripping extravagance would take offense that her father’s gang had tried to pilfer a bag of coins or two. Those that lived in such fine abodes counted their carefully hoarded wealth each evening before bed, intent on ensuring that not a penny had escaped their notice and gone missing.
Meanwhile, those like Beatrix and Aaron fought for every crumb. She knew how much her father had spent over the years on tutors to teach her everything from literature and French to astronomy and medicine. More importantly, her father had ensured that she had the proper training in etiquette, decorum, even dancing. It had mattered much to him that no one ever think she was a gutter-dwelling wretch.
I’d rather live in the gutter than lounge about like a rare flower in a place such as this, she thought bitterly, looking again to the lead-glass windows and squinting at their bright light.
“This way, miss,” one of the men said, surprising Beatrix with his gentle tone and manner. Instead of taking her roughly by the arm, he gestured before her with his hand outstretched. It was as if he should be inviting her into the house instead of keeping her prisoner inside.
Beatrix reluctantly approached the staircase. She would not give any of the onlookers the satisfaction of seeing her cower as a victim of her own crime. She threw her shoulders back and held her head high, her countenance and bearing unlike that of any thief in the realm. Even the cad who’d stolen her away paused his discussion with his valet in order to take in her manner.
“If you please, the door is this way,” the man said, still speaking in a low voice. “The servants’ doors, that is.”
Beatrix turned and pinned him back with an angry glare. “What? Is there no door for women who’ve been kidnapped at gunpoint by a man with more money than intelligence?”
“I beg your pardon?” the guard stammered, his face turning red.
“Oh, I see,” Beatrix said condescendingly. “I suppose it’s only fitting that I have to enter around the back of the property. After all, the grand entryway is reserved for those who steal far more than I ever have.”
They looked at each other for a moment and then Beatrix nodded. “By all means, you’ll have to lead the way. I’ve never been someone’s prisoner before, so I shouldn’t know where to go.”
The footman looked around awkwardly, and for a moment the nobleman seemed to feel a passing expression of guilt under the servant’s intense gaze. The man held out his hand once more and asked Beatrix to accompany him. They disappeared around the corner of the house just as the shadows of the arched portico swallowed them up.
“Barclay, please see to it that she has something sufficient to eat, and water to wash with,” he said before striding away and entering the house. He paused at the entryway, the one that only moments ago a common criminal had ridiculed for being too fancy. He shook his head in anger.
Chapter 6
The sound of bellowing shouts and breaking glass shook the small cottage. Men scattered in all directions as one object after another was hurled at their heads. More than once, a hole in the thin p
laster of the wall appeared beneath the sharp corner of something hard that had collided with it.
“Where is she?!” Aaron roared, reaching for the fireplace poker and swinging it madly at anyone who was nearby. “Where is my daughter?”
“We don’t know! A finely dressed man took her away, as I’ve said!” one of the men explained for the tenth time. “We were outdone by his men when the man took hold of Beatrix and used her to shield himself.”
“How many years have you been firing off that gun of yours at rats and creatures of the field?” Aaron shouted accusingly. “Yer certainly a deadly shot when yer belly’s empty, but suddenly ya cannot fire at a man who’s threatened my daughter’s life?”
“I dared not! What if I’d hit Lady Beatrix by mistake? I’d never live with such grief as that!” the man argued, and Aaron paused for only a minute in his anger.
“But how dare ya show yer face back here without her? Why didja not give chase and bring her home?” Aaron threw a pewter mug at one of the men, clonking him solidly above the eye with it.
“Aaron, we had no choice!” one of the men began, but Aaron’s boot from off his foot struck the man squarely in the mouth. He pressed his hands to his mouth and cut off his cry of surprise at the same time.
“No choice? No choice but to leave Beatrix to fend for herself against a passel of prancing nobles while you tucked your tails like the cowardly dogs you are?” Aaron flung the chair from beside the hearth at another of his men’s heads, narrowly avoiding splintering it into kindling against his forehead.
“They bade us lie down and not follow! The man held a gun to her head and threatened her very life, what were we supposed to do?” shouted Pencot, arguably the bravest of Aaron’s followers.
“You were not to allow her to fall into their trap in the first place!” Aaron shouted, but the fight was already going out of him. It was quickly being replaced with an overwhelming sadness coupled with fear.
“Aye, it would have been a good idea had all of us prevented her, would it not?” Pencot replied, raising an eyebrow and insinuating that Aaron had just as much a hand in her disappearance.
“Watch yerself!” Aaron hissed. “You know I had no hand in letting her go, I all but threatened to lock her in chains to prevent her! Still, she insisted! And it was you who assured me she’d be safe and looked after!”
“And we did, we never took an eye off her,” one of the men piped up, but Pencot silenced him with a look.
“Aaron, we’d all be in the stocks awaiting the hangman if we hadn’t let her go. This way, you know not where she may be, but you have every reason to think she’s alive.” Pencot rubbed the back of his neck as he looked down at the hay strewn over the dirt floor. “This way, there’s a chance she’s alive and that we can find her.”
“You never should have let her out of your sight!” Aaron yelled, pounding the table with his fist. His shoulders slumped and he let his head fall forward before adding, “I never… I never should have let her out of my sight…”
“Aaron, don’t do this,” Abrahms said, coming up behind Aaron and putting an arm around his quaking shoulders. As the oldest of the bunch, he’d earned a portion of respect, even from Aaron. “Your Beatrix is a strong lass, smart as they come, and not afraid of nothin’. Why, this time tomorrow, I rightly ‘spect to see her flitting through the gate there with a handful of fresh medicinals in her fist!”
Aaron only shook his head, hopeful that Abrahms words rang true, but feeling certain that they would not.
“And what shall I do if ya be wrong?” he asked wearily. “Which one of you fellows is strong enough to put a bullet between my eyes if I learn she’s never coming home again?”
“You mustn’t say such a thing! Tis bad luck!” Pencot insisted. “She’ll be all right, Aaron. We’ll find her, I promise you.”
“See that you do,” Aaron said in an ominously stern but quiet voice. “If any harm comes to her, I’ll end me own life… after taking every one of you with me, mark my words.”
“My Lord, all of your things have been laundered and put away, and the items you’ve brought of your mother’s have been properly stored,” the butler, Lloyd, announced when he entered Callum’s study.
“Thank you, Lloyd. I trust all was well during my absence?” he asked, though his tone was hollow.
“I am happy to report that there were no incidents that require your attention at this late hour, My Lord. If you’d prefer to wait until morning, that is, I will happily—”
“Yes, now that you mention it, I think anything unimportant shall wait a little longer. Thank you, Lloyd,” Callum said, dismissing the butler only to change his mind and call him back. “Tell me, has the prisoner made any statement?”
“I beg your pardon, My Lord? What sort of statement?” Lloyd asked, moving closer to Callum’s chair so that he might not need to speak of it loudly.
“Anything, really. Has she mentioned my missing property? Or the identities of those who might have taken it?”
“No, My Lord. She’s only been here but a few hours. I’m sorry, but she hasn’t spoken to anyone that I know of. I will inquire among the staff downstairs, of course. I’ve taken to having one of the housemaids tend to her for propriety’s sake, but under the guard’s supervision.”
“Good idea,” Callum agreed, still staring at the empty fireplace. “Please let me know at once if she relents and offers her cooperation, no matter what hour it may be.”
Lloyd bowed and left the room, returning to his quarters. Callum chanced a look at his pocket watch where it still lay open on his desk and he grimaced, unaware that he’d kept the butler up so long after midnight.
He tried not to let his mind replay the fight over and over in his mind, but in truth, Callum could think of nothing else. He felt foolish, perhaps, to mourn the loss of an object he’d only possessed a few days, an object he had not even known about a week before. But each time he tried to put it out of his mind, his mother’s face appeared, begging him in her weakened state to keep it safe for a bride of his own.
A fresh wave of misery struck him, and Callum knew it was a resurgence of grief for his mother and not just the loss of a sentimental ornament. Still, all efforts at assuaging his grief only resulted in a new flood of rage. How dare that band of filthy savages lay claim to his property? And that woman, had she no shame, no sense of humility, no feelings of even the most basic human kindness?
“Thief or no, how viciously uncaring does someone have to be in order to steal the very bag from their horse?” he mumbled, flicking his hand idly against the desk. “They knew not what it contained. Why, it could have been life-saving medicine for a village beyond the way!”
Soon enough, Callum struggled to call up the vision of his dear mother’s face as it had been replaced in his anger by the wild animal visage of his prisoner. He struggled to put aside the image of her angry sneer, her unkempt hair, her torn and stained clothes, the very dirt upon her cheek.
Her cheek, her hair… something wasn’t right. Callum’s brow furrowed in confusion as he thought about every moment of their altercation. She’d requested assistance and pointed to a very genuine bruise upon her head, one that his valet claimed had come from beating her back himself. While that could still be true enough, Callum thought to the moments he’d held her captive before the other thieves.
Unaware in the heat of the moment, he was now fully conscious of having her so close to him. There had been no ungodly stench about her, no coarse nature in her words or manners, no instinctive aversion that caused him to recoil from a disease-ridden, skeletal wretch like those who scavenged the backroads and byways. Only now did he realize that the young woman had been clean, cared for, and even well-fed.
His thoughts returned to the way she’d fit in his arms, the curve of her body in the crook of his elbow where he’d held her shoulders to his chest. It would have been unbecoming to think on it at the time when so much danger was about, but now he found his thoughts retur
ning to how much he’d liked having her so close.
Callum’s mind swirled in a firestorm of possibilities.
“What if the poor creature had actually been the victim, kidnapped and abused by those pigs and forced to play the decoy for their crimes? What if they still held the young woman’s sister as hostage, or had threatened the lives of her family?” he questioned, growing more and more alarmed.
For all he knew, she had been treated with more ill will than he had, having lost only a material object and not something far more valuable. Callum checked his watch and cringed at the time but couldn’t bring himself to leave this matter until morning. He may very well be no better than those vile men who’d taken her against her will, locking her in an empty room and leaving her to her fear.
He hurried through the house to the upper kitchen and down the stairs that led below. Upon reaching the lower floor, he moved more carefully, intent on not disturbing anyone. Finally, at the end of the last hallway, he spotted the guard who’d been placed outside the lady’s room, sleeping propped up in a ladder-back chair. Callum tiptoed down the hall, uncertain as to whether the other rooms were occupied. He tapped the man on the shoulder silently, only to jump back when a startled cry of surprise echoed down the length of the hall.
The Stolen Diadem of a Castaway Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 4
