Shameless

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  With his lovely little sister-in-law as bait.

  Savoring the thought, Neil waited for Lady Elizabeth to draw closer, and in the meantime enjoyed the view.

  “Florimond, you may not stop to sniff every tree and bush and blade of grass in the park,” she scolded the dog. “We are walking.”

  The animal had brought her to a halt once again, and she addressed it with some exasperation. But she tugged only gently on the slender lead that stretched between her and it, and it continued sniffing around the base of the massive oak with impunity.

  “Perhaps we should have left him behind, Miss Beth,” the maid, a round-faced young woman with dark hair concealed under a mob cap and a sturdy body clad in a light blue dress and apron, said in a slightly wooden tone that told Neil that her own view of the merits of walking the animal was strong despite being dutifully suppressed.

  “Oh, Rawlings, you know very well I promised Lady Salcombe I would look after him while Lady Anders is her house guest,” Lady Elizabeth said. “Lady Anders breaks into the most dreadful fits of sneezing every time he comes near. And he’s a very good dog, aren’t you, Florimond? The trouble is that he has very little experience with parks.”

  “Or carriages, or horses, or children chasing hoops.” The maid’s voice had a long-suffering edge to it now. “’Tis a very pampered dog, Miss Beth. I doubt he has ever been beyond his own garden before.”

  “Then it’s nice for him that we are broadening his experience. Come on, Florimond.” Lady Elizabeth tugged on the lead, and the dog reluctantly abandoned the oak to toddle after her.

  She regained the gravel foot path while the dog kept to the grass, its gaze now glued to the pair of ducks that flapped noisily overhead. She glanced up, too, and the bright morning sun struck the plethora of curls that cascaded out beneath the straw bonnet framing her face, making them gleam like a profusion of rubies and making her identity impossible to mistake even if he hadn’t known from her voice who she was. No other woman of his acquaintance had hair like that.

  Slender and graceful, she was clad in pale yellow, some filmy material that floated behind her in the slight breeze, with a matching fichu, and it struck him that she looked like a sunbeam herself, or certainly some bright, shiny creature that did not belong in the same world as the dark and desperate labyrinth he inhabited. Almost he hesitated. But then he remembered that if he didn’t find a way to turn the tables on his enemies soon, he would be dead. And the certainty proved very persuasive.

  So he stepped out of the shadows onto the sunlit path, still some distance ahead of her but visible now if she chanced to look his way.

  But she didn’t. At least, not yet. She was wholly occupied with the uncooperative dog.

  “No, Florimond!” she cried as the ducks landed with a splash in the nearby pond and the dog took off like a bullet toward them, yanking its lead from her hand in the process. For a moment Lady Elizabeth stood aghast, looking after the yapping little dog as it charged toward the ducks, which floated with magnificent unconcern in the center of the mirrorlike water. Then she hiked up her skirts and raced in pursuit, putting a slight smile on his face as he was treated to yet another view of slender, silk-clad ankles and calves.

  As an afterthought, he noted that the lady ran with the speed and agility of the boy she most certainly did not resemble.

  “Florimond! Florimond, come back here!” she cried. “Here, Florimond!”

  “Miss Beth!” The maid ran clumsily after, then was sidetracked by the need to catch her mistress’s hat as it went sailing, tumbling with the wind as it was whipped from Lady Elizabeth’s head and blown toward the cow pasture.

  “Florimond!” Lady Elizabeth raced on, her bright hair streaming out like a banner, her skirt bunched around her knees in front and billowing in the breeze behind, legs flashing, truly delectable bosom bouncing.

  Thrusting his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels, Neil allowed himself to enjoy the sight until a stand of willows blocked his view.

  Had she not been extremely fond of Florimond, Beth thought with aggravation, she would have left the little dog to his own devices when he darted toward the pond. She was almost sure he could swim—couldn’t all dogs? She had never possessed one of her own, so she couldn’t be positive, but she rather thought they could. Therefore, he would almost certainly have come to no harm as long as she made sure to collect him when he gave up his quest. But, not an hour since, the dog had been bathed by Tom footman on Graham’s orders as a result of having rolled in something extremely malodorous in the garden when said Tom had taken him out first thing that morning. And since Florimond hated being bathed and made that abundantly clear with a series of howls loud enough to rouse the household, she had no wish to add to his, or Tom’s, or anyone else’s misery by putting him through the process again, should he decide to jump in the muddy-banked, reed-ringed, algae-infested pond.

  “Florimond! Here!” she cried, hiking her skirts to indecent levels as she tried desperately to plant a foot on the trailing lead. The grass was slippery underfoot, and the ground was lamentably uneven. Falling flat on her face was a real possibility. Fortunately, a line of gracefully swaying willows between her and the path blocked the view of most anyone who conceivably might be watching. The riders she’d observed earlier, the nursemaid pushing the pram up over the hill—all those were out of sight. There was a closed carriage stopped on the road that led from the park entrance to the dairy farm, embarrassingly close to her projected path. Except for the horse, though, it appeared deserted. Perhaps the driver, instead of waiting for his passengers, had disembarked for a stroll of his own. In any case, she couldn’t worry about it. She had more pressing concerns. Florimond, drat him, was picking up speed.

  “Here, Florimond!”

  The dog ran on regardless. Beth barely managed to swallow a most unladylike oath. Down in the dumps herself over the tide of gossip that had accompanied her nonengagement, which lurched between the glee of the camp that was sure Rosen had not come up to scratch and the disapproval of the camp that held she had jilted yet another fiancé, she had been profoundly sympathetic to his misery over the bath. Until now. Now she just hoped no one saw her running like a hoyden with her skirts bunched around her knees. As Aunt Augusta had made sure to tell her, her reputation hung by a thread. Much more talk, and she could rest assured that Rosen would be the last eligible suitor she’d be able to bring up to scratch. She would very likely end her days an old maid, living in her sisters’ houses, caring for their children. And that, in Aunt Augusta’s bluntly expressed view, would serve her just exactly right.

  The gossip was certainly unpleasant, Beth had to admit, but she felt Aunt Augusta’s view of the situation was too dire. Though some of the highest sticklers might look at her askance, the invitations had not stopped coming, and she still had a number of admirers whose attentions, now that Rosen had, in their view, withdrawn from the lists, were very flattering. The Earl of Cluny, for one, who was considered to be quite a catch, and the very rich Mr. Charles Hayden . . .

  “Florimond, no!”

  The edge of the pond was now close; it was a matter of seconds only until the dog reached it. He was flying, his little paws barely touching the ground. The ducks, ignoring Florimond’s high-pitched threats, swam placidly toward the far bank. Florimond launched himself triumphantly toward the water . . .

  And Beth’s foot came down solidly on the end of the leash.

  “Florimond! Stop!”

  This time he did stop, brought down in midleap by the sudden restraint of the leash. His high-pitched yelps cut off abruptly as he landed with transparent surprise on all fours, then fought to be free. Beth snatched the leash from beneath her foot, hanging on tightly to the leather strap until she reached the miscreant himself. He was practically hopping up and down with displeasure as she scooped him up with a sigh of relief.

  “Thank goodness,” she said, holding him tight in her arms while Florimond yearned after the ducks a
nd squirmed to be free. “What were you thinking? Do you want another bath?”

  Florimond paid no attention. He was still busily engaged in hurling threats and abuse at the ducks when a man spoke behind her.

  “Be you Lady Elizabeth Banning?”

  “Yes,” Beth replied automatically, and was just turning to see who had so addressed her when something slammed hard into the side of her head. For the briefest of moments she saw stars. Then the world went black, and she crumpled soundlessly toward the ground.

  Chapter Seven

  IT WAS THE MAID who first alerted Neil to the fact that his plan had gone awry. Clutching Lady Elizabeth’s hat, which she had finally managed to retrieve, the woman had hurried past the willows and down the slope and thus out of his sight in pursuit of her mistress. Now that the dog had been blessedly silenced, the morning’s peace had been restored. Neil strolled into the middle of the path—the better for Lady Elizabeth to spot him when she resumed her morning’s exercise—folded his arms over his chest, and waited with less tension than he had felt in days.

  That is, until the maid’s raised voice reached his ears.

  “Miss Beth! Miss Beth!” The distress in the woman’s voice was impossible to mistake. “Lawks, Miss Beth, where be you? Miss Beth!”

  Neil frowned. His arms dropped to his sides. He moved, walking toward the pond, where the maid still called.

  “Miss Beth! Miss Beth!”

  Emerging on the other side of the willow stand, looking down the slope toward the pond, he saw the maid, her mistress’s hat still clutched to her breast, running around like a madwoman, charting a rough zigzag course from the edge of the pond to every tree, bush, and tuft of ornamental grass in the vicinity that was large enough to possibly serve as concealment for a person.

  What the hell. . . ?

  “Are you hiding, Miss Beth? ’Tis not a funny game, if that’s what you would be at. Miss Beth!”

  In general, Neil was loath to let himself be seen, but in this particular case he realized it did not particularly matter: Richmond would know who he was dealing with as soon as he received Neil’s message advising him of his sister-in-law’s abduction.

  Which should have been taking place just about now. Except he couldn’t see the girl.

  Anywhere.

  “What’s to do?” he asked, putting himself in the maid’s path. He was unshaven—his razor was with his other belongings in the rented rooms he had been forced to abandon in Paris, and he had not cared to waste the few coins it would have cost him to acquire another—and his clothing was not in the best of conditions, which was not surprising considering that he had only a single change of apparel, acquired in a theft from a whorehouse floor while its owner was happily otherwise occupied, which had alternated with his own clothes since the eventful night a fortnight previously when an assassin had first tried to do away with him in his bed. But he had been the recipient of enough female attention over the years to know that he was generally accounted a very well-looking man indeed, and despite his current state the maid proved no exception. She stopped—she had no choice as he placed himself directly in front of her—and her eyes widened a little on his face. Then she gave him a lightning-fast once-over. Fortunately, there still remained enough of the gentleman in his speech and manner that her instinctive alarm at being addressed by a male stranger in a public place was almost instantly allayed.

  “Oh, sir, ’tis my mistress,” she gasped in obvious distress. She was flushed and sweating, and her eyes darted frantically around in search of the girl even as she spoke. “She has—she has disappeared, like. It was the dog, see, and . . . and her hat, and . . . and then she ran toward the pond and . . . Oh, sir, what am I to do? She is gone!”

  As a result of this disjointed speech, Neil realized that he had been in the right of it. Except for himself and the maid, there was not a soul in sight. No flame-haired chit. No annoyingly loud dog. Only an oblivious cow grazing in its ornamental pasture and, bowling away toward the gate, a closed black carriage.

  “Be silent,” he said sharply to the maid, who was beginning to wail. As the woman, apparently scared into obedience, swallowed the sound with a gulp, he turned and walked swiftly toward the pond. A cold prickle of unease raced down his spine. Could Lady Elizabeth have fallen in? Was she even now drowning? Without so much as a ripple on the surface of the water, or a sound?

  If not, where else could she be?

  “Miss Beth swims like a fish.” The maid, sniveling now, had followed him and appeared to have divined his thoughts as he stood scanning the murky surface. “Oh, sir, wherever can she be?”

  He glanced back at her to find that she was gazing up at him as if she expected him to take charge and find her mistress for her. Again he looked around, taking in every detail of the verdant landscape, with no more success than before. To all appearances, Lady Elizabeth was indeed gone without a trace, and the dog with her.

  Impossible.

  “Lady Elizabeth!” His voice was far louder than the maid’s, much deeper and far more authoritative. It was, in fact, the voice of a man who was accustomed to being instantly obeyed. In this case, it also had the virtue of being known to the one for whose ears it was intended. He had no doubt of an answer—if she was in any condition to make one.

  Which she almost certainly had to be. What harm could she have come to in the few minutes she was out of his sight?

  The only response came from the ducks: with a great flapping of wings, they took to the sky again, careening over the treetops and out of sight.

  After that, silence reigned. Charged silence that was disturbed only by the pant of the maid’s breathing and the rustling of the soft spring breeze through the treetops.

  “Lady Elizabeth! Can you hear me?”

  It occurred to him, too late, that by calling out to “Lady Elizabeth” he revealed to the maid that he knew exactly who her mistress was. Not that it mattered, given what he intended, or rather had intended, but caution was as much a part of his nature now as distrust, and he felt the breach of his customary anonymity like a physical pang. However, the maid didn’t appear to notice anything amiss. Her face was red as a cock’s comb now, and her mouth trembled as her head swung from side to side in a futile visual sweep of the little bowl of ground in which they stood.

  “Could she have started for home without you?” Neil asked, without any real expectation that the lady had done so. If that had been the case, she would still be within sight, which she emphatically was not. In any case, to head for home without her maid, or her hat, for that matter, seemed senseless, and whatever else she might be, Lady Elizabeth had certainly struck him as a young woman of sense. Still, he frowned down the road that led past the pond toward the gate—and was just in time to watch as the door of the rapidly retreating carriage swung open. A bundle of some sort hit the ground. Inside the carriage, he caught a blur of rapid movement, a flash of vivid red and soft yellow, before the door was once again firmly closed.

  For a brace of seconds he simply stared as his mind processed what he had seen. In the meantime, the carriage bowled through the tall stone gates and turned left onto the busy street beyond.

  The red had been the same shade as Lady Elizabeth’s hair. The yellow had been the bright hue of her dress. And the bundle—even as he looked after the carriage, the bundle moved, shook and shed its mantle of gray to reveal a small tan animal—had been the dog.

  “Florimond,” the maid breathed, sealing the animal’s identity for him.

  Ye Gods, there was no mistake: for some unknown reason, Lady Elizabeth was inside the carriage.

  Even as realization crystallized, he broke into a run, heading for his horse, cursing himself for having left it so far away.

  “Sir!” the maid screeched piteously after him. “Sir, please, what shall I do?”

  He had forgotten all about her. The dog, hearing her voice, turned its head in her direction, then started trotting their way, apparently none the worse for its experi
ence.

  “Wait here,” he yelled over his shoulder, it being no part of his plan to have a rescue launched before he could secure the lady for himself. “She will undoubtedly return.”

  If the maid replied, Neil didn’t hear it. He was already topping the slight rise that constituted the horizon at that particular spot and felt no need to respond. His thoughts were in turmoil even as his boots tore up the sod.

  The more he replayed the scene in his mind, the more convinced he became that Lady Elizabeth was in that closed carriage, which presented him with two possibilities: either she had entered the conveyance of her own free will, or she had been forced inside. He really knew very little of the lady, of course, but just three days before she had been breaking off an engagement in the most final of manners. It seemed unlikely, therefore, that what he had just witnessed had been a clandestine elopement. The flash of movement he had glimpsed in the carriage had suggested to him there had been some sort of struggle going on inside. And the dog had been wrapped in something, thrown out, and abandoned. Given those facts, then, the most likely explanation for her presence in that carriage was an abduction.

  But abducting her was his plan, and he had not been involved in any way, shape, or form.

  Clearly, someone else had beaten him to the punch. His gut burned at the thought.

  The question was, who? And why?

  Pondering the possibilities was a waste of time. He knew too little about her life to even begin to speculate. All he knew was that his best hope of survival had just been rudely snatched out of his reach, and he meant to do his possible to get her back again.

  Chapter Eight

  WITH A PALE CRESCENT MOON floating high above the tallest of its many turrets, Trelawney Castle looked as starkly forbidding as any medieval fortress. Made of age-darkened stone, built perhaps three centuries previously, it was more visible than usual on this clear night because of the faint light glowing through its dozens of narrow, slitted windows. Isolated on a rocky island about a half mile off Tynemouth in the North Sea, the castle was a relic of an earlier time when landowners held on to their properties by might of arms. Besides the protection afforded by the expanse of water separating it from the mainland, it was surrounded on all sides by an immense stone wall complete with ramparts. Its location alone should have meant that visitors were few and far between. On this night, however, a ferry of sorts had been set up and the oarsmen had clearly been busy. Carriages climbed the winding road from the ferry landing up to the castle’s massive gates, which were open, and inside the walls the courtyard teemed with activity as the carriages stopped, disgorged their passengers, and returned to the ferry for more. To a man—and they were all men—the guests who clambered down from the carriages hastened inside as soon as they arrived so as not to miss a moment of the promised entertainment. By this time—shortly before eleven p.m.—new arrivals had slowed to a trickle. Only a few passengers were gathered on the mainland dock to await the return of the ferry. A solitary horse and rider trotted along the narrow, rutted road, silvered now by moonlight, that led down to the ferry: a latecomer intent on joining the festivities, Neil had little doubt. In fact, unless he was much mistaken, he had seen the fellow before. The well-padded shape of him, plus the awkward way he bobbed in the saddle, were well-nigh unmistakable.