Which one of all of these has kidnapped Marianne or hired it done? Where the devil is she? By now she has been gone more than twenty-four hours.
*
When dawn appeared through his dormer window, Ernest was out of bed, dressed, and waking Tony. They arrived downstairs to find the innkeeper serving Beau bacon and eggs.
“Hounds,” said Ernest. “Have you tried hounds?”
Beau answered, “The local master of hounds is Baron Southeby. He’s off at the races, but his wife promised to send over the hounds this morning with their keeper. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it yesterday.”
“Which direction did you look yesterday?” asked Tony.
“North and northeast,” said Beau. “Today I propose we try south and west, now that there are more of us.”
Deep baying hailed the arrival of the hounds, and the three men exited the inn, greeting the large man and a youngster who looked like his son on horseback, holding the leads of half a dozen bloodhounds who were quivering and straining at the prospect of a hunt.
The hounds’ handlers identified themselves as Rigby Sr. and Rigby Jr. Beau introduced all of them and gave Rigby Sr. the pillowcase with Marianne’s scent. He was also prepared with a sheet from the bed as well as a shift that the maid, Foster, had given them.
They started the hunt by the back stairs where they assumed she had been compelled to leave the inn. Ernest was discouraged almost immediately when the dogs lost the scent at the stables.
“She was taken somewhere in a conveyance that didn’t return to the inn,” said the dog handler. “Otherwise one of these wagons would contain her scent.”
“There are too many wheel tracks and hoofprints to follow,” said Ernest.
“The hounds can still help,” said Tony. “If we get close to where she’s being held, they’ll pick up her scent. I propose that we divide up the hounds among us and go east, south, and west.”
“Good plan,” said Beau. “We’ll need another handler, though.”
Ernest didn’t wait for them to come up with one. He immediately selected two of the hounds and signaled Rigsby Sr. to follow him on his horse. They headed south. The captain figured that the villain would have taken the route farthest away from the road north to Newmarket.
If she was being held in an outbuilding, which seemed likely, they were looking for a farm. He asked the master, “Where are the farms south of here? I intend to visit all of them today.”
“First we ought to try Crickets. It’s a bit southeast of the highway.” He held the hounds loosely.
“Will they follow if you let them off their leads?”
“They’ll follow me, yes. Do you have the pillowcase still? We might have to refresh the scent.”
Crickets Farm had several well-kept outbuildings. In the interest of being thorough, the two men and two hounds investigated all of them, though Ernest was fairly certain they were looking for something less used and worse maintained. As he feared, the hounds failed to find her scent.
“Is there anything less prosperous in this direction?” he asked Rigsby. He explained his reasoning.
“There are a few when you get farther away from Harlow. Do you want to ride south and try them before we look at the ones closer?”
“It’s a gamble, but I think that the best plan. I have a feeling that this fellow would want to get as far from the inn as he could get without slowing down his own progress toward Newmarket too much.”
“Right,” said Rigsby. “We want to go southeast, then. Away from the highway where the most prosperous farms are.”
Traveling at a faster pace, the two men proceeded down a little-used cart track farther and farther into the countryside. After an hour and a half’s ride, they arrived at Hudson Farm, which was suitably neglected.
The hounds did not pick up a scent. In fact, they were run off the property by the irate farmer who carried a pitchfork.
After having no luck at Nickel’s Farm, Ernest began to doubt his strategy but went ahead and tried the hounds at the last farm on Rigsby’s mental list. With no luck there, he was at a loss as to how to proceed.
“Are there any abandoned farms in this general area?” he asked.
“The dogs are getting tired,” Rigsby said. “They have a long way to go back to Harlow. Let’s go to the brook over there and water them and give them a rest. I can draw the area out in the dirt, and you can decide what you want to do, but I think we should head back soon.”
Ernest felt a shot of anxiety pierce through him. He couldn’t give up on his hunch. Something was compelling him to continue on this course.
Sitting down beside the brook, he drank his fill out of his cupped hands. The hounds drank, too, and afterward came over to him and began sniffing the pillowcase again. Sniffing around the ground, they pawed the dirt as though they could find some subterranean hiding place.
Rigsby pulled a slice of bread and hunk of cheese out of his knapsack. “Care to have some, Cap’n?”
Ernest declined. His insides were in an uproar. Deciding to walk a little way into the brush to relieve himself, he heard distant sounds. The hounds had loped on behind him. They perked their ears.
He walked closer, tramping down the dense growth surrounding him. Eventually he came to a clearing, and he found horses hitched to brightly painted caravans moving north. Gypsies!
They would certainly know of any abandoned properties along this area of land.
Approaching the nearest caravan, which was proceeding slowly, he spoke to a man alongside it walking with a staff. He was dressed in long black trousers, a red shirt, and a black neckcloth. His dark face was seamy with age.
Ernest asked, “Have you seen or do you know of any abandoned sheds or properties in the vicinity where someone may have hidden a kidnapped woman?”
The man’s eyes took on a wary look. “We don’t kidnap women, no matter what people say of us.”
“I don’t think you do. The man who did this was not of the Romany. It is too difficult to explain why, but Lady Deveridge was taken from her bed in Harlow at the Green Goose night before last. We believe, if she is still alive, that she was hidden somewhere in the countryside. Somewhere not in everyday use.”
“We travel to the country around Harlow,” the man said grudgingly. “We keep feed for the horses and cattle in a shed about an hour northwest of here. No one else uses it.”
Ernest’s heart leaped. “Thank you!” He flipped the man a golden guinea, and the hounds led him back through the undergrowth to the brook where he had left Rigsby. He told the man of his conversation. “I have a feeling we should look into it. It could be exactly what we are looking for.”
Rigsby agreed rather reluctantly on the grounds that they were at least proceeding back northward. They mounted their freshly watered horses and picked carefully though the uncultivated growth that led them to the gypsy’s trail.
Consulting his compass, Ernest led the way forward with Rigsby and the dogs trotting on behind him. Judging their pace to be at least twice that of the gypsies’ caravan, he refreshed the dogs’ scent with the pillowcase when they had been traveling northwest for half an hour.
They perked up and started sniffing the air. Nothing. Disappointed, he slowed the horses a bit. Maybe he had taken the gypsy’s approximation of time and direction too literally. Perhaps they should have waited and followed behind the train.
Suddenly the hounds bolted forward and began their deep baying bark. A smile broke out on his face, and Ernest bolted from his position and galloped directly behind them. They all fetched up outside a shed fastened with a rusty padlock. Such a shed matched the one in his mind’s eye that he had been seeking all day. Beneath the dog’s bark, he could hear a cry.
“Help me!” It was Marianne.
Heart leaping, he began his assault on the ancient hinges of the door with a large rock.
“It is I, Ernest. I will have you out in a trice!”
Chapter Nineteen
She
scarcely dared to hope that eventually people would venture near this place where she had heard no sound, save that of a nearby brook, for two days. Marianne had almost resigned herself to the fact that the villain had left her to die of starvation and thirst. She was parched and cold, and her head hurt in a different place now where he had struck his newest blow. After crying out in vain repeatedly, she had given up to sleep.
When Marianne heard the baying of the hounds, she began to shout with a voice which had grown feeble from overuse. She had come to believe no one knew of this place, but now she heard someone that sounded like the captain. Was she merely dreaming?
Someone was hammering on the old hinges of her door. A new wave of strength traveled through her limbs. In what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, the hinges gave way. As the door fell, she heard the exultant words, “My darling. You are found.”
Tears fell down her cheeks behind the black hood. It was the captain! How on earth had he found her? Two large, smelly dogs leaped on her, answering her question. Hounds! He had traced her with hounds. Limp with relief, she lost what strength she had as the hood came off her face and head and she saw her rescuer.
The captain’s eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, and his face was tight with concern.
“Are you well? When was the last time you drank? Ate?”
“Luncheon on the road on the way to the inn,” she croaked. “I think it was the day before yesterday. I never thought that I would see you again.” To her shame she began to sob. The hounds licked her tears and danced about her with as much glee as a sober bloodhound could manage.
The captain made quick work of her bonds, but they had been so tight, her hands and feet felt useless. Pulling her up, he held her tightly against him. “Oh, my dear, dear lady. Thanks be to Providence that I have found you. It is in the nature of a miracle.”
“I confess I have been praying for one,” she said, shaken by his tenderness. He was holding her like a cherished find.
“Though I have never been a praying man, I must have felt those prayers.”
Her hair had come loose from its bedtime plait, and she wore only a nightgown. She felt his warmth clear through her. Eventually, she became conscious of her state of underdress. “Oh, Captain! I am in my nightdress!”
He grinned. “I had noticed. While it is a lovely nightdress and looks particularly fetching on you, there are gypsies headed this way, so I think we must cover it up. Hold on a minute.” Leaving her for only a few seconds, he returned with his many-caped greatcoat. “Here you are. This will cover you. Now you can come out. There is a brook nearby.”
“I know,” she said. “The sound of all that water nearly drove me mad with thirst.”
Lifting her up in his arms as though she were a child with her bare feet dangling, he carried her to the brook, where she drank from her cupped hands. Water had never tasted so good!
She started to feel pins and needles in her hands and feet. They were painful, but she was happy to know they were still functional.
Though it was spring, it was cold, and she had begun to think she might die of exposure. She had decided after the first day that the villain was not returning but had gone on to the races, leaving her to die a slow death. She had prayed for rescue but had begun to think all was lost.
Marianne seated herself on the bank, bundling herself tightly in his cloak. “Now, you must tell me how you came to be my white knight.”
“Later. You must drink some more water presently. Are you physically hurt?” He examined her with his eyes, head to foot. She was very glad she was cloaked.
“I was struck on the head again, but it was on the top, not the back where my other injury is. I do not think it is as bad. I have a headache, but I was unconscious for only a short time, as far as I could tell.”
“Thank Providence for small mercies,” he said, feeling the new lump on her head. “I think you’ll do. How are your hands and feet?”
“Prickly,” she said. “If I were not so happy, they would be driving me mad.”
The captain grinned at her, and her heart lifted. Had she ever felt so much joy?
“Now, you must meet your other rescuers,” he said. “Mr. Rigsby, the trainer and handler of these excellent hounds.”
The tall man with a large mustache came toward her. “You have had a rough go of it, young lady. I’m so glad Sykes and Bluebell found you. But most of the credit goes to your man. He had an instinct where you would be. Then he ran across those gypsies. I’m guessing you were imprisoned in their feed shed. They probably use it only when they happen to be passing through this way. I know vaguely where we are, and the shed used to belong to a farm that has been bought up by a new man who doesn’t use it. These gypsies must have taken it as their own.”
“The villain we are looking for had to have lived near here at one time, or he never would have known of it,” said the captain. “That’s one more thing we know about him.”
“He is strong,” Marianne added. “But not overly tall.”
“Whoever he is, he made all of us miss the King’s Plate. That was undoubtedly the object.”
Marianne shivered and pulled the greatcoat about her more tightly. “I am going home to Bucks. I doubt I will be any threat to him there, especially now that the race is over. I say, I wonder who won?”
“That is the least of my concerns,” said the captain. “It is a good hour back to the inn. I want to let the others know you have been found, and you need food and some good rest. I also want a physician to look at your head.”
“There is nothing a doctor can do. My head doesn’t worry me. I have a thick skull, remember? But I would like to get back to Harlow. I hate to think of poor Gweet and Penny worrying themselves ill over me.”
“Tony and Lady Strangeways are there, as well as poor Beau. Last I saw him, he was worried Bertie was going to run him through.”
Marianne sobered. “Yes, Bertie would have never forgiven himself for leaving if anything had happened to me. Thank you so much for rescuing me.” She looked up at the captain with eyes she was certain were red from weeping. His eyes were soft and solemn. Raising her gently, he took her into his arms and held her to his chest. She could feel his heart pounding hard as he ran his fingers through her loose hair.
“Well, it was no one’s fault,” she murmured. “Who would have ever thought the man would steal me right out of my bedroom? I’m so glad Gweet was downstairs, or he might have taken her as well.”
The sounds of the gypsy train reached them in the slow trod of horses and low voices.
“Oh,” cried Marianne, suddenly aware of the figure she must cut in a men’s greatcoat, with unbound hair and bare feet. “Let us be gone!”
“I must pay them for new hinges,” said the captain. He handed a pound note and a shilling to Mr. Rigsby. “Could you take care of it for me? The note is for your very great help today. Because of you and your hounds, Lady Deveridge is recovered.”
The man looked uncomfortable, returning the note. “I cannot take your money. The hounds belong to my master, and he would have let you have them for nothing. I am glad we found the lady. But yes, I will explain and pay the gypsies. Be on your way and Godspeed.”
Marianne allowed herself to be swept up before the captain on the front of the horse he called Doolittle for some reason. They made their way through the waning light back to the main road and then through to Harlow.
She could not speak, she was so exhausted, but Marianne enjoyed sitting in such close proximity to the captain. She did not see beyond that instant and the joy it held.
It was full dark by the time they arrived at the inn. Penelope and Gweet surged through the front door and embraced Marianne as soon as the captain helped her to dismount.
“Oh, Mama, I thought never to see you again! I was so frightened. Whatever happened to you?” cried Gweet.
It smote Marianne to see the strained face of her daughter. She made light of her adventure. “I was kidnapped an
d taken to an old feed shed, where Providence put together an unlikely band of hounds, gypsies, and Captain Saunders to rescue me!”
As Gweet clung to her, Penelope asked, “Did you see your kidnapper? Did he hurt you?”
“Another knock on the head, but it’s nothing. No. I didn’t see him. He put a black sack over my head. I am so, so sorry that you were all worried. Gweet, I shall keep you tethered to my side the whole way back to Poplars.”
“You are still determined to go home?” Penelope asked.
“Yes,” Marianne said, though the idea of ever being separated from the captain again was a sudden dart to the breast. She felt bonded to him through his rescue and could not imagine ever leaving him. She owed him her very life.
Marianne thought he must have felt the same when he said, “When you are feeling more the thing, I shall escort you home myself. We shall hire a carriage.”
*
It was two days before Marianne felt strong enough to travel. She spent the time at the cozy inn, surrounded by Beau, Penelope, Sammy (and his nurse), Gweet, and Captain Saunders. The first morning they found out that Virginia’s Prize had indeed won the King’s Plate, and the Strangeways had left with Angelique and their party of servants for their house in Newmarket to make what investigations they could.
The second morning, Captain Saunders received a letter from Tony informing him that the final odds on his horse had been a hundred to one, so the winnings purse had been large, and the bettors who had risked their money on Virginia’s Prize had been more than amply rewarded. Was this the aim of their villain?
Captain Saunders felt that it was. He wrote asking Tony to see if he could find out who the big winners had been.
“I am glad that it appears there has been no lasting damage to Tony’s horse from the drugging,” Marianne said.
“I am glad that it appears there has been no lasting damage to you from your kidnapping. Deuce take the blasted horse,” said the captain.
She both longed for and dreaded the feeling of his arms holding her tightly against his chest again. But he kept his distance, and except for long, heated looks, she had no particular attentions from him.
Love Unexpected_A Regency Romance Page 13
