To make her torment that much worse, she had only nibbled at her supper, and now the sight of Chorley carrying in platter after platter of succulent dishes made her positively weak. Surely the dinner must be ending soon?
Ah, at last one of the footmen was bringing in the sweets. Soon the ladies would be withdrawing to leave the gentlemen to their brandy. During the general commotion that would result, she and the twins would have an opportunity to make good their escape without fear of discovery.
But despite her cramped limbs and growling stomach, Anne could not completely control her insatiable curiosity, which had been her downfall on many a previous occasion. Long had she wondered what men talked about when there were no women present, and now, at last, she had the opportunity to find out.
* * * *
“If you cannot bear to be separated from your newfound love, Collier, you are free to join the ladies,” Thorverton said in a teasing voice.
Collier blushed, stammered something confused, and hurried from the room.
“Undoubtedly true love,” Bronson commented wryly, reaching for the bottle of brandy. “But here I am neglecting my duties as host. My dear Trussell, do you care to join us in imbibing some of this divine potation from the vines of Bacchus, brought to these shores courtesy of the Gentlemen? Or do you also prefer to join the, uh, ladies?”
“The devil take you!” Red-faced, the dandy rose from the table, and with a glare at Bronson, stalked from the room.
“What the deuce has gotten into him?” Thorverton stared at the closed door in amazement, then turned to Bronson. “You were only being polite, yet he reacted as if you had insulted him.”
Bronson poured himself and Thorverton each a measure of the rejected brandy. “You must excuse him. I fear Trussell is not himself today. Hag-ridden, I expect.” Glass in hand, he rose to his feet and began methodically to inspect the wall behind him.
“You don’t mean—you cannot mean Mrs. Pierce-Smythe?”
“Exactly. It would seem the merry widow has her claws sunk so far into him, he will ne’er escape.” He heard a gasp emanating from the wall—a feminine gasp, and slightly to his left if he was not mistaken.
“A toast!” Behind him, Thorverton raised his glass. “To bachelorhood! Long may we both live in freedom from all feminine shackles!”
Bronson did not make a move to raise his own glass.
“But you are not drinking? Come, come, my friend, you have already expressed your views on the subject of women and matrimony. Did you not tell me—”
“Do not throw my former folly in my face,” Bronson interrupted smoothly before his friend could totally offend the beautiful eavesdropper. The last thing he wanted at this moment was for her to get her back up. “Whatever my opinion of women may have been, it has changed radically since I met Miss Hemsworth.”
Ah, there, slightly below normal eye level, a carved oak leaf was out of alignment, revealing a small peephole. There was not enough light to see who, if anyone, was making use of it, but even while he watched, the leaf slowly moved back into proper position.
“Since making the acquaintance of the redoubtable governess, I have been seriously contemplating matrimony,” he said.
He was rewarded for his audacious statement by the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps, which made no attempt at stealth.
Chapter Twelve
“Surely you are not seriously intending to carry out the kidnapping now? When there are so many extra people in the house?” Thoroughly aghast, Wyke stared at his employer in dismay.
“I must, I must, I have no choice,” Trussell said, pacing back and forth in a veritable frenzy. “You do not understand. The widow has possession of my notes of hand, and she threatens to send me to debtor’s prison if I do not secure her entrée into the highest level of the ton.”
“Which would be less risky by far than what you intend.”
Trussell grabbed the valet by his labels and spoke directly into his face. “It will not be less risky. It will be impossible. If you had been there this evening, if you had seen the way Lady Thorverton reacted, you would know that no power on earth is enough to pry open the portals of Almack’s for that female and her daughter. I am sure of failure if I follow that route, but if we make this attempt now, at least there is a chance of success. You said we must wait until the moon was full. Well, ‘tis full tonight, and tonight we shall do it. We must, I tell you, we must!”
His voice rose higher and higher in incipient hysteria, and the valet could only be grateful for the thick walls and doors in Wylington Manor, which with luck would keep anyone from hearing what Trussell seemed intent on proclaiming to all and sundry.
Wyke carefully removed Trussell’s hands from his jacket, which was now sadly crumpled. Perhaps his employer was correct ... and, on the other hand, assuming he was wrong, might there not be more money made out of the failure? If the widow learned of this misdeed, might she not pay handsomely?
“Very well,” Wyke said in a placating tone of voice, “if you insist, but we must wait until quite, quite late, to be sure that everyone is asleep. And before we begin, are you absolutely sure you remember the plan?”
“Of course. It is simple enough. I will carry one of the twins and you will carry the other, and the ether will guarantee that neither of them puts up a struggle or cries out.”
* * * *
Wyke held the handkerchief he had stolen from Lord Leatham’s room across the twin’s face. The boy stirred fitfully for a moment, but then the ether with which the piece of fabric was soaked began to take effect, and the lad quieted down and lay motionless.
On the other side of the room there was an unexpected noise, which Wyke identified to his profound regret as the sound a bottle makes when it falls to the floor.
“Blast,” his partner in crime muttered under his breath.
“Shhhh!” The valet left his designated victim and tiptoed across the room to help Trussell with the other twin.
Too late. Wyke could smell the fumes from the dropped bottle even before he reached Trussell, and he barely caught his woozy employer in time to prevent him from collapsing across the bed. With difficulty he assisted the idiot out of the room. Propping him up against the wall, Wyke left him in the corridor and returned to the job at hand.
Already, not ten minutes into the kidnapping, and everything was going wrong. One twin was properly out cold, but the other twin ...
Wyke leaned over the bed and heard the slow, steady, breathing of a sleeping boy. Good, they still had a chance to make a recovery. He took a step closer and his foot came into contact with the bottle, which skittered across the floor and under the bed.
Crawling underneath to retrieve it, Wyke got a dose of the ether himself, and he was forced to stick his head out the open window, lest he also succumb to the effect of the fumes.
Leaning over the windowsill, fighting off the nausea, he made his decision. As soon as was feasible, he was going to leave his jingle-brained employer and find someone more worthy of his talents. Or perhaps he would set himself up in business, where he could be his own boss.
By the time Wyke’s head had cleared and he had hoisted the one twin over his shoulder, Trussell had also recovered his wits enough to follow them through the long, meandering hallways and down assorted stairs and out the small side door they had chosen for their exit.
“But we were supposed to take both boys,” Trussell protested once they were out of earshot of the house. “You are changing my plan without permission.”
“One will be adequate,” Wyke replied tersely, only with great effort refraining from pointing out to his employer just who had fouled up the plan and who had salvaged at least the essential part of it.
“I suppose you are correct,” Trussell said grudgingly. “Are you sure we are going in the proper direction? I thought we were supposed to head southeast.”
“We are going southeast.”
“No, no, I am sure you are mistaken. We are definitely going
northeast.”
It was too much. Wyke gritted his teeth and marched onward, leaving Trussell to follow or not. Ten minutes of walking and he came to the outcroppng of stone where he had secreted the lantern and rope, plus a pair of Leatham’s boots, likewise removed from the baron’s room when both he and Daws were absent.
“You see? Here is the equipment we need, right where we left it. Now if you will bring it along—”
“I? Why should I carry everything, pray? Surely your duties as valet include carrying things.”
At these words Wyke totally lost control. “Do as I tell you,” he hissed in a voice that brooked no nonsense. “Unless you prefer to carry the child, in which case I shall be more than happy to carry the other things.”
“Oh, no, no, I have no objection to doing my share. It merely slipped my mind that you were already so burdened down.”
It had slipped his mind that they were in the middle of a kidnapping? Wyke was appalled at his master’s totty-headed inability to concentrate on what they were doing. And what else had Trussell forgotten? Had it also slipped his mind that if they were caught red-handed, they would likely be transported to Australia, or even worse, to Van Diemen’s Land? And what else might slip Trussell’s mind? Or would it be a slip of his tongue that betrayed them?
Wyke, who had not once set foot inside a church since he was ten years old and had left his parents’ house to go into service, now began to pray more earnestly than he had ever before done in his life.
* * * *
Anthony was chilly and his head ached. “Drew, shut the window, ‘tis too cold in here.” There was no answer from the other side of the room, so he decided to shut the window himself.
He tried to roll over in bed, but he bumped into something hard—something that did not belong in his bed. Sleepily, he opened one eye, then in astonishment he opened the other.
He was not in his bed—not in his room—not in Wylington Manor—not in any building, in fact. He was lying on a blanket inside a circle of stones, with the starry heavens as the only roof over his head. In the west the full moon was setting, and in the east the sky was already starting to lighten.
It took him only a moment longer to discover his hands and feet were tied. Immediately enraged, he yelled at the top of his lungs.
No one replied. No one came. For a moment he just lay there, too angry to be scared. Then he managed to sit up and look around. He was out on the moor, and the only light within view was the moon, which was bright enough that he could see the ropes that bound his wrists and ankles.
Whoever had tied him up knew not the first thing about knots, that much was evident. To begin with, his hands had been tied in front of him, which made it ridiculously easy for him to use his teeth to untie his wrists.
Well, perhaps not ridiculously easy, but it did not take him more than ten minutes of effort, after which he disposed of the ropes on his ankles even more quickly.
Standing up, he had a better view of his surroundings, but he still could see no sign of habitation, nor did he recognize any of the rock formations around him. Knowing which way was east did not help him in the slightest, since he had no way of knowing if he was north or south or east or west of Wylington Manor.
More than likely he was south. That was the only part of the moor they were forbidden to explore on their own, because it had too many dangerous fens and mires.
He wanted very much to run home as fast as he could, but common sense and Anne’s admonitions to stay in one place if lost kept him from setting out in the dark. He would not have very long to wait; the sky in the east was becoming rosier by the minute.
Picking up the blanket, he wrapped himself in it and sat down to wait.
* * * *
Anne lay in her bed watching the slow arrival of the dawn. She had spent the night thinking about Lord Leatham and what he said to Lord Thorverton at dinner ... or perhaps, he had said it to her, Anne, knowing from the beginning that she was hiding in the wall.
There was no doubt in her mind that he had known by the end of the evening that she was there. After the ladies had left, followed by Collier and Mr. Trussell, Lord Leatham had stood up and casually moved out of her range of view, although she could still hear him talking to Thorverton, and then suddenly Lord Leatham had been there, standing directly in front of her, blocking her view of the room and staring straight at her through the peephole.
Or so it had seemed. Knowing the darkness in the passageway would make it impossible, or at least highly difficult, for him to see her, she had not panicked—at least not right away. She had slowly and carefully eased the peephole shut, breathed a soundless sigh of relief, then heard him say those fateful words: “Since making the acquaintance of the redoubtable governess, I have begun seriously contemplating matrimony.”
It was at that point that she had totally lost her composure and had fled from the scene. A bad mistake on her part, as the twins had not hesitated to point out to her. Had she remained motionless where she was they could have all escaped detection.
What the boys did not mention, but what had been driving her crazy ever since, was the knowledge that by running away as she had, she had forever lost her chance to hear what else Lord Leatham might have said concerning marriage.
She rolled over in bed and pulled the covers over her head to shut out the sunrise. As long as the night had seemed, she was not yet ready to face what daylight would bring. The meeting with Dear Aunt Rosemary and Dear Cousin Rosabelle, which she had dreaded so much the day before, now seemed the least of her worries. More nerve-wracking was the thought of seeing Lord Leatham again. She had just spent many hours of darkness trying to figure out how to delay that inevitable confrontation.
To be sure, she had not been awake the entire night. Off and on she had slept briefly, but her dreams had been just as filled with Lord Leatham as her thoughts were when she was awake. The only difference had been that in her dreams he had each time looked her straight in the eye, had said, “Marry me, Miss Hemsworth,” and had then deliberately kissed her.
And each time, instead of being able to enjoy the kiss properly, she had invariably awakened, her heart pounding in her chest, her senses completely alert. All in all, it had been a most frustrating night.
Her dreams were not really the problem now, nor was her problem her inability to sleep. Her problem was first of all the question of whether Lord Leatham was seriously contemplating asking her to marry him. And if he was, there was the even more difficult question of whether she should accept him or reject him.
If she said yes to his proposal, assuming he made one, she would, in Aunt Sidonia’s words, be burdening herself for life with that most useless of encumbrances, a husband, without whom women were free to do as they pleased, to live their own lives, and to think their own thoughts.
On the other hand, if she said, “No thank you, my lord, I do not wish to marry you,” then at the end of the summer she would of necessity have to leave Wylington Manor forever, in the process severing her relationship with the twins. Moreover, Lord Leatham would undoubtedly depart on another of his long journeys, and it was highly unlikely that their paths would ever cross again.
In essence, she would have to choose between freedom and entanglements, between remaining detached and becoming involved in the lives of others. Although she had held three previous positions as governess and had lived in intimate contact with three different families, she had never felt herself to be the least bit emotionally involved with them. She had always felt herself to be the impartial observer of the follies of others.
That those others had depended heavily on her was not to be denied. The point was, she could have walked away from them at any moment without looking back. In truth, when the time had come that her job was finished, she had indeed left without a backward glance or thought.
Could she leave the twins that easily? Or Lord Leatham, who she suspected was becoming just as emotionally attached to her as the twins were?
&nbs
p; That they would miss her was a foregone conclusion, but that she would miss the three of them was a radically new idea. To be honest, every time she thought about leaving Devon, thought about how difficult it would be, she felt herself trapped.
Not trapped by their need for her services as a governess and a managing female, but trapped by her love for them.
It was exactly as Aunt Sidonia had warned her. Just so were women down through the centuries lured into permanent relationships with men.
What Aunt Sidonia had not mentioned was that it felt rather nice to be so involved. Compared to life here in Devon with her three lords, freedom seemed rather empty and forlorn and vastly overrated. Looking back, her years as a governess in more normal households seemed so boring, lacking as it did the mental stimulation of dealing with the twins’ ingenuity ... and the physical stimulation of Lord Leatham’s kisses.
When she thought of his arms around her and his lips pressing against hers, her mind automatically returned to contemplating her first problem: Had Lord Leatham, knowing she was hiding in the wall, merely been toying with her in an attempt—successful, as it turned out—to teach her a lesson on the folly of eavesdropping? Or had he been serious when he mentioned marriage?
* * * *
Bronson stood at the window of his room and glared out at the moor, which had a strange beauty all its own, bathed as it was in the rosy morning light. His thoughts, however, were not rosy, and his mood was becoming darker, rather than lighter.
He had not, of course, been serious when he had mentioned marriage the evening before. He had merely said the first outrageous thing that had entered his mind, his goal being to provoke whoever was hiding in the secret passageway.
So why now, when it was the dawning of a new day, did his remark seem not the least bit preposterous? Why did it seem so completely natural? So totally rational and logical?
Charlotte Louise Dolan Page 19
