His response to this bold and truthful declaration was to smile down at her and say gently, ‘Well tried, my dear. You surely don’t expect me to believe that Banbury tale!’
Really! He was being as impossibly stupid as his two hired bravos—which was not his reputation at all.
‘Of course I do—for that is the truth. I told those two bruisers of yours that they had snatched the wrong woman—but would they listen to me? Oh, no, not they!—and now you are as bad as they were.’
His face proclaimed his disbelief. She had carried being Amelia off so well that she risked being stuck with her false identity, if not for life, for the time being at least. So much for his immediately exploding into anger when she made her belated revelation!
Instead it was she who stamped her foot. ‘Of course I’m not Amelia. Do I look like a simple-minded eighteen-year-old? Do I speak like one? Come to your senses, sir, if you have any, which I beg leave to doubt on the evidence of what I have seen of you so far. It is time that you recognised that you have organised the kidnapping of the wrong woman and are now unlikely to carry off the right one, for once I am free again I shall proclaim your villainy to the world. The punishment for kidnapping an heiress is either death or transportation. I have no notion what the penalty is for a mistaken kidnapping, but it ought to be pretty severe, don’t you think? Unless, of course, you could manage to get it lessened on the grounds of your insanity.’
Susanna’s transformation from a reasonably spoken young woman of good birth into a flaming virago was a complete one—inspired by the fear that, will she, nil she, having been kidnapped by mistake she was going to find herself married by mistake as well!
Ben Wolfe’s face changed, became thunderous. He controlled himself with difficulty, and murmured through his teeth, ‘Tell me, madam, were you playing with me then—or now? Was Amelia Western the pretence, or Susanna Beverly? Answer me.’
‘I have already answered you. I am Susanna Beverly and therefore nothing to your purpose at all.’
The look he gave her would have stopped the late Emperor of France in his tracks it was so inimical, so truly wolf-like as he barked out, ‘And how do I know that that is the truth? I assure you that you look and sound like no duenna I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. You are far too young to begin with. No, I fear that this is but a clever ploy to persuade me to let you go.’
‘Well, I assure you that I don’t find you clever at all. Quite the contrary,’ exclaimed Susanna, exasperation plain in her voice. ‘Call in that big man of yours and he will inform you that from the moment he threw me into your carriage I never stopped trying to tell him that he had carried off the wrong woman.’
Ben Wolfe knew at once that, whoever she was, there was no intimidating her—short of silencing her by throttling her—and he was not quite ready to do that, although heaven knew, if she taunted him much more, he might lose his self-control and have at her.
Choosing his words carefully, he said, ‘Let us sit down, enjoy a cup of tea and talk this matter over quietly and rationally.’
Biting each word out as coldly as she could, Susanna said, ‘If you offer me a cup of tea again, Mr Ben Wolfe, I shall scream!’
His answer was, oddly enough, to throw his head back and laugh. ‘Well, I don’t fancy tea, either. Would a glass of Madeira tempt you at all?’
‘It might tempt me, but I shan’t fall. A wise friend of mine once said that an offer of a glass of Madeira from a gentleman when you were alone with him was the first step on the road to ruin, so thank you, no.’
‘Very prudent of you, I’m sure. Although, if you are Miss Western, you may be certain that I shall not attempt to ruin you. As I said earlier, my intentions towards you—or her—are strictly honourable. I intend to marry you—or her.’
‘But since I am Miss Beverly, what will be your intentions towards me? Seeing that, by your reckless act, I shall have been irrevocably ruined?’
Before he could answer, Susanna added quickly, ‘What I am at a loss to understand, Mr Wolfe, is how you came to mistake me for her. We are not at all alike. How did you discover who I was—or rather, who you thought I was?’
‘Oh, that is not difficult to explain,’ he returned, although for the first time an element of doubt had crept into his voice. ‘At my express wish you were pointed out to me by Lady Leominster herself on the occasion of her grand ball the other evening. You were standing next to George Darlington at the time.’
‘Was I, indeed? On the other side of the room? With another woman on his other hand?’
‘Does that matter? But, yes—or so I seem to remember.’
Susanna began to laugh. ‘Oh, it matters very much. One thing I know of Lady Leominster, but not many do, is that she cannot distinguish between her right or her left. Be certain, Mr Wolfe, that you have indeed carried off the duenna and not her charge. You should have asked to be introduced to Miss Western—but you had no wish to do that, did you? It would have saved you a deal of trouble and no mistake.’
Ben Wolfe, his mind whirling, tried to remember the exact circumstances in which he had seen the supposed Miss Western. Yes, it had been as she said. George Darlington had been standing between two women, and Lady Leominster had pointed out the wrong one—if the woman before him was telling the truth.
He smothered an oath. Her proud defiance was beginning to work on him—and had she not earlier told him to ask his ‘big man’ whom she had claimed to be when they had first captured her?
‘For heaven’s sake, woman,’ he exclaimed, being coarse and abrupt with her for the first time now that it began to appear that she really might be only the duenna of his intended prey, ‘sit down, do, don’t stand there like Nemesis in person, and I’ll send for Jess Fitzroy and question him. But that doesn’t mean that I accept your changed story.’
‘Pray do,’ replied Susanna, whose legs were beginning to fail her and who badly needed the relief and comfort of one of the room’s many comfortable chairs, ‘and I will do as you ask. As a great concession, I might even drink some of the tea which you keep offering me.’
‘Oh, damn the tea,’ half-snarled Ben Wolfe before going to the door, summoning a footman and bidding him to bring Fitzroy and Tozzy to him at the double.
‘By the way, before the footman leaves,’ carolled Susanna, who was beginning to enjoy herself in a manic kind of way, very like someone embracing ruin because it was inevitable rather than trying to repel it, ‘tell him to bring the reticule which flew from my hand on to the floor after I was dragged into the chaise. There is something in it which might help you to make up your mind about me.’
‘Oh, I’ve already done that,’ ground out Ben Wolfe through gritted teeth as he handed her a cup of tea. ‘A more noisy and talkative shrew it has seldom been my misfortune to meet.’
‘Twice,’ riposted Susanna, drinking tea with an air, ‘you’ve already said that twice now—you earlier announced that you had a similar misfortune with duennas. When I was a little girl, my tutor told me to avoid such repetition in speech or writing. It is the mark of a careless mind he said.’
She drank a little more tea before assuring the smouldering man before her, ‘Not surprising, though, seeing that your careless mind has secured you the wrong young woman. You would do well to be a little more careful in future.’
This was teasing the wolf whom Ben so greatly resembled with a vengeance but, seeing that she had so little to lose, Susanna thought that she might as well enjoy herself before the heavens fell in.
Afterwards! Well, afterwards was afterwards—and to the devil with it.
Ben Wolfe, leaning against the wall as though he needed its support, looked as though he were ready to send her to the devil on the instant. He did not deign to answer her because he was beginning to believe that she wasn’t Amelia Western, and that, for once, he had made an unholy botch of things.
No, not for once—for the very first time. He had always prided himself on his ability to plan matters so met
iculously that events always went exactly as he had intended them to and he had built a massive fortune for himself on that very basis.
The glare he gave Miss Who-ever-she-was was baleful in the extreme, but appeared to worry her not one whit. There was a plate of macaroons on the teaboard and Susanna began to devour them with a will. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and all this untoward excitement was making her hungry.
It was thus Ben Wolfe who greeted the arrival of his henchman with relief. Tozzy, the junior of the two, was carrying a woman’s reticule, a grin on his stupid face. Fitzroy, more acute, knew at once that his employer was in one of his rare, but legendary, tempers and assumed the most serious expression he could.
‘Is that your reticule?’ demanded Ben of Susanna, who was busy pouring herself another cup of tea. ‘I thought that you didn’t care for tea,’ he added accusingly, mindful of her former refusals.
‘Oh, it wasn’t the tea I didn’t care for,’ Susanna told him smugly, ‘it was the company and the occasion on which I was drinking it which incurred my dislike. I’m much happier now,’ she added untruthfully, ‘and, yes, that is my reticule.’
‘Then hand it to her, man,’ roared Ben who, being gentleman enough, just, not to shout at Susanna, shouted at Tozzy instead.
Tozzy, having handed the reticule back to Susanna, opened his mouth to speak, but was forestalled by the beleaguered Ben saying to Fitzroy, ‘Look here, Jess, Miss Who-ever-she-is says that when you picked her up in Oxford Street—’
‘Kidnapped me,’ corrected Susanna, who was now inspecting the contents of her little bag and smiling at them as she did so.
‘You picked her up in Oxford Street,’ repeated Ben through his excellent teeth, ‘and she told you that she was not Miss Western. Is that true?’
Jess looked away from his employer before saying, ‘Yes. I called her Miss Western and she immediately informed me that she was not.’
‘And who did she say that she was?’
‘She claimed to be Miss Western’s duenna, Miss Beverly. But you had pointed her out to me as Miss Western yesterday in Hyde Park so I knew that she was only saying that in order to try to make me let her go. So I took no notice of her.’
‘You took no notice of her,’ said Ben, who found that he had recently acquired the distressing habit of repeating not only what he had said, but everything said to him. ‘Didn’t it occur to you to tell me that she had made such a claim?’
‘Not exactly, no. You’ve never, to my knowledge, ever made such a mistake before—indeed, I can’t remember you ever making a mistake of any kind in any enterprise we’ve been engaged on, it’s not your way, not your way at all…’
‘Jess!’ said Ben awefully. ‘Shut up, will you? Just tell me this. Which do you think she is? She has, in the last half-hour, claimed to be both Miss Western and Miss Beverly.’
Jess was too fascinated to be tactful. ‘Both? How could she do that?’
‘Easily,’ said Ben. ‘Damme, man. Answer the question.’
Jess looked Susanna up and down as though she were a prize horse. ‘Well,’ he said doubtfully, ‘she’s only supposed to be eighteen. I’d put her as a little older than that. On the other hand, she claimed to be a duenna and, in my experience, duennas are usually middle-aged; she certainly doesn’t resemble or behave like any duenna I’ve ever met and—’
‘Jess! Stop it. You’re blithering. I know what duennas look like. Give me a straight answer.’
‘Wouldn’t it be simpler if you listened to me?’ Susanna was all helpfulness. ‘Perhaps you could explain why, if I’m Miss Western, heiress, I should be kidnapped outside an office for the placement of young gentlewomen needing employment, i.e. Miss Shanks’s Employment Bureau, and carry its card in my reticule. Look,’ and she handed it to Ben Wolfe who stared at it as though it were a grenade about to go off at any moment.
‘She has a point,’ observed Jess gloomily.
‘Does that mean, yes, she’s Miss Western or, no, she’s Miss Beverly?’ snapped Ben, tossing Jess the card.
‘No, she’s Miss Beverly.’
‘God help me, I think so, too. You picked up the wrong woman.’
‘Kidnapped her, on your orders, which he faithfully carried out,’ interrupted Susanna, her mouth full of the last macaroon. ‘You really can’t pretend that you’re not the one responsible for me being here.’
Master and man stared at one another.
‘Apart from gagging her to stop her everlasting nagging, what the hell do we do now?’ asked Mr Ben Wolfe of Mr Jess Fitzroy, who slowly shook his head.
Chapter Three
‘Missing?’ said Mrs Western to Amelia’s maid, who had been sent to remind Miss Beverly that she should have been in attendance on Amelia at six of the clock precisely to see that she was turned out à point in order to attend the little supper party which the Earl, George’s father, was giving for them at Babbacombe House that evening.
‘She’s not in her room, madam, and the housekeeper says that she went out early this afternoon, saying that it would not be long before she returned. She has not been seen since.’
‘You visited her room, I collect. Was there any sign that she had intended to be away for some time?’
The maid shook her head. ‘Not at all, madam. The ensemble which she proposed to wear this evening was laid out on her bed, together with her slippers, evening reticule and fan.’
Mrs Western heaved a great sigh. ‘How provoking of her! You are sure that she is not in the house—hiding in the library, perhaps? She spends a great deal of time there which would be better spent with Miss Western.’
‘I enquired of the librarian, madam, but she has not visited it today.’
‘I should never have hired her—although, until now, she has carried out her duties well enough—but tigers do not change their spots…or do I mean leopards? What are you smiling at, Amelia?’
‘It’s leopards, mama, I’m sure—or so Miss Beverly always says. But it’s no great thing that she’s missing. I am to marry soon and shall not be needing a duenna—and in any case, young women about to be married are always allowed greater freedom than those who are not. We could let her go immediately. I, for one, shall not miss her.’
‘Not until you’re married,’ moaned Mrs Western. ‘We must be seen to do the right thing.’
She snapped her fingers at the maid. ‘Keep a watch out for Miss Beverly and tell her to report to me the moment she returns—she cannot be long now, surely. Her absence is most inconvenient.’
The maid bobbed a curtsy and said, ‘Yes, madam.’ Later, after the maid had spoken to the housekeeper, they agreed with Mrs Western that the duenna would shortly turn up. But no, time wore on—the Westerns left for Babbacombe House and still the duenna had not reappeared.
‘Run off with someone, no doubt,’ offered Mr Western when they reached home again and she was still missing. ‘If she’s not back by morning, we’ll inform the Runners of her absence—just in case something odd might have occurred.’
‘Never mind that, Mr Western—whatever the circumstances, you will agree with me that she’s to be turned away without a reference.’
‘Indeed, my dear. Amelia is right. She no longer needs a duenna for these last few weeks before she marries.’
Susanna was not to know—although she had already guessed—the manner in which her disappearance was treated by the Western family and the way in which it would complete the ruin which Francis Sylvester had begun.
While Mrs Western and Amelia were discussing her fate so callously, she was sitting alone before the now-empty teaboard, Ben Wolfe and his chief henchman having retreated to Ben’s study in order to discuss how to extricate themselves from the quagmire into which they had fallen as a result of kidnapping the wrong woman.
Not, Susanna concluded, wondering whether to ring the bell and ask for something more to eat, that there was such a thing as the right woman where kidnapping was concerned! And why was Mr Wolfe so bent on depriving
George Darlington of his bride? There was a fine puzzle for her to solve.
The secret little smile she gave when she thought of what the two men might be planning in order to repair their present unhappy situation was quite a naughty one.
I really should not be amused, she told herself severely, for I can think of no happy way out of this brouhaha for myself. On the other hand…She paused, and thought carefully for some minutes. On the other hand, I must admit that Ben Wolfe seems to be a man of great resourcefulness, but he will need all of that to disentangle himself from the spider’s web which he has created.
She was not far wrong about Ben. Once out of the sound of Susanna’s mocking voice, constantly reminding him of what a cake he had made of himself, he had recovered the cold-blooded and cold-hearted equanimity which had taken him from poverty to immense riches.
‘Don’t say anything, Jess,’ he had commanded, his right hand raised, when they reached his study, a comfortable room that was all oak, leather and bookshelves. ‘I freely acknowledge my error. I am entirely to blame, and conceit has been my undoing. You carried out my orders to the letter and the only thing I can fault you for is not reporting to me the lady’s reaction when you kidnapped her. What I have to do now is save the situation from becoming even worse than it already is.
‘I cannot allow this innocent young woman to suffer as a consequence of my folly, but how to rescue her poses a number of difficulties. If you have any suggestions to offer, pray make them now.’
He flung himself into a high-backed chair which stood before a large oak desk on which pens, papers, sand, sealing wax, rulers and a large ledger were carefully arranged. As elsewhere in the house the room was meticulously ordered, a monument to the care with which Ben Wolfe normally arranged his life and that of those around him.
The Wolfe's Mate Page 4
