A few days passed without incident. Lucas wished that Clarine would call in the constables, at least to give Sarah a scare, but eventually, he had to realize that Clarine was probably right. There were still too many variables in place, and at the end of it, Sarah's actions didn't make enough sense to constitute an act of deliberate malice.
Mason was healthy again within a day or so, and though Quentin was a little slower to heal, Lucas thought that that might have been more about the younger man's natural listlessness than anything else.
In short order, the household was back to where it had been, no adverse effects of the poisoning, if that was even what it had been. Lucas wasn't any more sure than he had been before.
Well... not everything was the same. During one of their midnight meetings in the stables, Clarine had confessed to Lucas Mason's proposal.
"And there's nothing wrong with it, per se. He didn't even make the proposal yet; he just wanted to tell me to expect it. Which, I suppose is kind?"
Lucas growled, a sound that made Clarine look at him with such surprise that he covered it up with a cough.
"I suppose you could look for worse things than kindness in a husband."
"I don't know. It would solve so many problems."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Clarine shot him a slightly tolerant look, which made him grit his teeth.
"I suppose that is not something you have to think about, is it? I mean, I am my father's only heir, and that means, well, that I need a husband sooner rather than later. There is only so long I will be allowed to remain a spinster."
"Allowed? Who's not letting you?"
She flapped her hands vaguely in the air as if he should know. "Society. The estate. The children that will one day inherit this place in their turn, just as I did. When I took on the title, I took on a responsibility."
Lucas snorted. "You are afraid of a few tastemakers in London who have not a whit of your brains or your beauty. What, is Lady Castlereagh going to tut at you and send you to the executioner's block?"
Clarine looked at him and then broke into such peals of laughter that she had to smother them under the horse blanket that rested by her side.
Lucas scowled at her. "What?"
"My goodness, Lucas, I had no idea that you knew about the who's who of London. Do you advise many young men on their coming out, or do you spend your time looking over the gossip columns in the papers?"
Sometimes, it was so easy to forget that he was here hiding from his own troubles in London. At Hartford Hall, London felt far away, and the man who had been the marquis was long gone. He stayed in contact with Marcus via post, who thought the entire thing was incredible, but otherwise, he had sunk into his life as Hartford Hall's primary groom, a man who was dedicated to his work and his mistress.
"Well, tell me, Lucas. Do you have much experience with London?"
"Only with Harris's List."
She frowned. "What in the world's that? I have never heard about it."
Lucas could feel a dull blush coming up on his cheeks. Damn right she had never heard of it. It was a tongue-in-cheek guide to the women who strolled the streets in Covent Garden and the nearby neighborhoods.
"Don't worry about it. And you should get along back to bed before someone catches you."
"Oh, very well. You should rest up as well. Tomorrow is the hunt."
"Ah yes, the hunt."
Hunts were out of season in spring, but apparently, the county in general never let that stop it. A neighboring earl was apparently taking the opportunity to hold a hunt, bringing everyone in striking radiance into the early May morning to ride.
Lucas could appreciate the need for excitement once the winter had worn off, but there was a part of him that could not really accept the idea of Clarine putting herself at risk while it felt as if someone was still trying to hurt her.
Well, I shall have to simply be at her side the entire time.
* * *
Henry Lawson, the Earl of Cadwell, was a bluff older gentleman who looked as if he spent as much time as he could on horseback. He called the hunt to order with three short blasts of his trumpet, and at his command, one of his grooms stepped forward with a basket. Inside, Lucas could see the canny yellow eyes of a red fox.
He shook his head.
"If there is no hunt, then the Earl of Cadwell will surely make one."
Clarine, standing next to Lady, hid a smile, but made no other response. She couldn't very well show her lowly groom any favor among her peers, but Lucas could see that she agreed with him.
By tradition, grooms were allowed to ride in the rear, behind the dogs and the hunters. Their position was not to hunt, but to lead fresh horses and to provide for any care that their masters needed while in the field. The grooms were a canny lot, quick-eyed and quiet, and Lucas thought that many of them, if not all of them, would likely be more skilled at the hunt than their own masters if it came right down to it.
Sarah Lister sat her gray horse well, but from the dour look on her face, she could scarcely have looked more irritated to be there. Quentin had excused himself on the grounds of still being slightly ill from the picnic, and of course, Mason was there.
Clarine wore a bright blue coat of superfine wool that day, and her long riding skirt was dyed a deep blue to match. She looked lovely in the dawn light, and when the nobles started to mount up, Lucas stepped forward to help her on to Lady.
"Oh, no need for that, my good chap. I'll care for her."
Of course, that was Mason stepping forward to help Clarine, and Lucas bit his inner cheek and stepped back with a dour look. Perfectly nice, Clarine had called him, but Lucas was more dubious. He had known plenty of men that nice who chased fortunes until they were drained to the last shilling, and though Mason's cover never slipped, to Lucas, that simply meant that he had had a great deal of practice.
Lucas noted with a sort of irritable lack of surprise that Mason hefted Clarine into the saddle too eagerly. His strength nearly threw her right over the far side of her horse, and she had to hang on to the saddle horn to steady herself.
"Thank you, Mason. You should get mounted up yourself. I think we are getting ready to start."
Clarine's voice was light and untroubled, but underneath its inherent sweetness, Lucas wondered if he sensed something more diffident. She had spoken once or twice about her cousin Mason's attentions.
"They all right, he hasn't crossed any lines..."
"But they are not tremendously welcome?"
"I'm not sure."
Lucas resolved that until she was sure, he would be keeping a very close eye on Mason indeed, especially when the smiling young man was watching Clarine so closely. He wasn't the only one, and at that moment, Lucas had never been more tempted than to declare his true identity to the world at large.
Instead, he gritted his teeth until he thought one might crack, and he mounted up as the hunt shifted, ready to move.
The basket with the fox in it was opened, and the fox sprang out in a streak of red and black. The hunt master counted to twenty, and then the dogs were released. The trumpet called the riders to order, and then they were sprinting across the heathered green expanse of the dales.
Despite himself, Lucas felt a thrill of excitement for being mounted and racing across the green. In his real life, he hunted, of course, as every man of his station did. However, their hunts were more elegant and refined things, taking place in the country seats of dukes and marquises. This was a country lord hunt, and there was something vital about it he had never encountered before.
Despite Lucas's excitement over the thrill of racing across the greens, he kept his eye focused on Clarine's bright blue coat and dark red hat. She was far from the only woman in the hunt, and there were two others dressed in a blue like hers. He had to concentrate hard on leading the bay horse held in reserve for her and also never taking his eyes off of her. At some point, he realized that Mason was watching her as well, and his disli
ke of the man only grew deeper.
The fox was a wily creature, and twice the dogs lost the scent. The fox was well-hidden, and beaters had to come in to drive it forth from the bushes again. They were closing in, however, but after one rush through the dimmer thicker trees, Lucas realized that the blue riding jacket he had in his sights belonged to an older lady. She turned, and Lucas felt a nasty shock echo through him as he realized she was not Clarine at all. The other lady in blue was close by, a tall and elegant brunette, but of his own Clarine, there was nothing to be seen.
"No."
Regardless of the breach in etiquette, he rode straight into the coiling mass of riders, looking desperately for the one woman he had wanted to keep safe. More than one lord shot him a dirty look, and if he were a real groom, he would have worries about being sacked. Instead, he was only himself, and more than anything else, he needed Clarine to be all right.
The fox was off, the horn sounded again, and obviously uncaring that they had lost someone, the hunt departed, leaving him behind.
She must have become separated from the rest in the last grove. I cannot have lost her sooner than that... could I?
Deep in his gut, however, Lucas knew that it was possible, no matter how unlikely. He would have sworn that he had not taken his eyes off of Clarine for more than a handful of moments in the entire hunt, but if she had slid away while his eyes were off of her...
He cut off that line of thought, wheeling toward the dark woods again. No. he had only lost sight of her recently. There was no other option he would accept. His heart pounded a hard tattoo in his chest, and he knew that he had to see Clarine safe, had to.
He entered the thick grove again, and the moment he was under the canopy, it was like entering a different world. It was completely unlike being there just fifteen minutes before with the hunt. There was something still about the grove, and cooler than the bright spring day outside.
As much as it pained him to slow down, he pulled his mount back to a walk, traveling along the trail. He didn't bother trying to discern Clarine's mount's hoof prints from the tangled weaving of the others, but instead, he looked at the edges, where at any point she might have gone off the trail.
He was edging into despair sooner rather than later, wondering if in fact she had been lost sooner then he thought, and then suddenly he was rewarded.
"There you are..."
A set of hoof prints led off the path, down a deer trail. Had she tried to water her mount? Then Lucas saw another set of hoof prints join hers, and his blood ran cold. He lashed the substitute horse's reins to a low hanging bush next to some forage. He would move faster without it. He kicked his horse into a trot, at once trying to avoid low-hanging branches and keep his eyes on the trail.
Lucas had some experience with tracking, thanking again his grandfather for wanting to prepare him for any eventuality.
Just when Lucas was afraid he had been led entirely astray and that he was off on a fool's errand, the tracks led into a steep ravine, hidden from the rest of the dales by sheer rock sides. Lucas could see the end of the ravine and realized that there was no clear exit. If Clarine was in the ravine, she was still there, and he dismounted silently, lashing his horse's reins and proceeding on foot.
He used all of his craft to move forward silently, and less than three minutes from the entrance of the ravine, he saw two horses hobbled close, and beyond them, two figures.
One of them, to his relief, wore a bright blue riding jacket and a dark red hat. It took Lucas a moment to see that Clarine was sitting so oddly because she had her hands tied in front of her, her legs sprawling outward as if she had simply been dumped on the ground. The other, more menacing, stood above her, pacing back and forth like a worried cat.
You son of a bitch. I swear to God, if you have hurt a hair on her head...
He had to restrain his rage enough to creep closer, but it was hard. All he knew was that he had to save Clarine. There was no other choice.
* * *
13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
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Clarine glared up at her kidnapper, her face sore from where he had cuffed her, her spine jangled from being dropped so unceremoniously on the rocky ground. She wanted to spit at him, to claw at him, but he had bound her so swiftly she could do none of that.
I must stay calm. I cannot let myself panic. if there is a chance to escape, I will take it. When his attention eases just a little, I will take whatever chance I can...
Her captor was a grimy man dressed in grubby non-descript clothing. He wore a bandanna over his face, revealing only a pair of small eyes that were creased with worry or with fury. He watched her as if he was somehow afraid of her, which made no sense at all.
"Don't go yelling like you did before unless you want another smack upside the head. I'm warning you, girlie, I will break your teeth, see if I don't."
"I don't see why you would. You will get more money for me if I'm whole."
"The gent didn't say nothing about that. He only told me to do this thing and I would get paid."
Gent... does that mean that Sarah isn't my attacker? Or she could have hired someone else to talk with this man.
Clarine pulled herself back to order mentally. She couldn't slide off in her own thoughts, no matter how much she might have wished to.
"You'll get paid more if you bring me back to Hartford Hall, you know. I am an heiress. I can make you a better offer."
The man looked like he was hesitating, and she pushed her advantage.
"You must know that kidnappings almost never get off scott free. Perhaps the men who planned them do, but never the ones who lay their hands on the quality."
She thanked her mother for making sure that her accent was purely King's English, without a trace of anything else. It was an accent that people were used to listening to, and this man was listening to her. Now she made her voice lower so that the man had to come a little closer to hear her.
"I don't care about anything except getting home. I promise you, I will pay you with untraceable currency, no jewels or silver that you have to pawn. Just cash, and then I will never think of you again."
For a moment, she thought he was tempted, but then his hand came down again, smacking her hard enough to turn her head to one side.
"Temptress bitch, I've heard about you. I heard all about your ma and what she did and..."
His foul words ended on a strangled note as Lucas rose from behind him, grabbing the man around the head and shoulders and pulling him back. The man uttered a loud shout, and suddenly, there was a large knife in his hands.
"Lucas! Watch out, he has a knife!"
Lucas was amazingly quick, but still, the knife slashing back sliced along his side and Clarine was terrified to see blood. In a panic, she bit at her bonds, trying to find any degree of looseness she could, anything that would allow her to free herself and go to Lucas's aid.
Her kidnapper had shaken him off, and now they rounded on each other, lashing out with fists and feet. Lucas, of course, had no knife, and with every slash, Clarine was afraid she would see more blood.
Slowly, oh so slowly, she felt the cords loosen and she started to work her wrists, not caring how raw or scraped they became.
Come on, come on...
Finally, the bonds came loose and she staggered to her feet. The men were fighting, not watching her at all, her kidnapper's stabs getting more and more wild. Thinking on instinct, she snatched up a small boulder the size of her head and ran to them.
Lucas saw what she was about and held up a hand to wave her back. That was when the kidnapper tried to make one final desperate lunge at Lucas, and Clarine knew she had no choice. She brought the boulder up and slammed it down on him. She used so much force to do so that she stumbled forward. She would have landed on top of the damned man if Lucas hadn't come forward to grab her.
"I always will."
For just a moment, she was dreadfully afraid that they were going to kiss in this terrible place, and then they heard the pounding of hoof beats at the same time.
Some curiously calm part of Clarine's mind thought that she and Lucas both felt the bonds of propriety in the oddest places.
They pulled apart, both of them breathless and wide-eyed. It was probably only a little better than being caught in an embrace, but it was better than nothing as Mason and Sarah rode up.
Sarah, to Clarine's surprise, dismounted so fast that her foot caught in the stirrup and she nearly fell to the ground. She scrambled for Clarine, dragging her into a hard hug.
Once Upon an Earl_Heirs of High Society_A Regency Romance Book Page 30
