Love Regency Style

by Samantha Holt

  Nonetheless, could she be sure? His dark jacket could have hidden stains in the wavering, uncertain light from the paper lanterns.

  However, he had not behaved oddly. At least….

  When she considered it, he had seemed a little edgy. Charlotte had assumed it was because the other ladies wouldn’t leave him alone. He said as much later, when he made his absurd proposal for a mock engagement.

  She rubbed her temples, gazing with unseeing eyes at the cobwebbed, gray windows.

  The situation was absurd. He had not killed her; the newspaper was wrong about the other women, as well. She hurried over and picked up the paper again, rereading the article. Miss Mooreland had been found in his coach. Further down, it indicated that her long white neck had been severed, right under the chin, with a hoof knife.

  Poor Nathaniel. The evidence was damning, indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Detective Duties. — All the steps taken by a constable to detect a crime after it has been committed, come under the head of “detective duties.” — Constable’s Pocket Guide

  After having nothing to do all day except fret, Charlotte was tense and out of sorts when she heard a creak outside the door. She grabbed the heavy white china teapot, suddenly afraid that her death as described in the newspaper was only a little delayed. Through the door she could hear the sounds of the bar being removed.

  It swung open, revealing Red carrying a bucket of water.

  She let out the breath she was holding and placed the pot back on the rickety table. “Red, I am glad it is you.”

  “Miss?” Red asked, his ginger brows rising. “Who else would it be?”

  “That dreadful little man.”

  “No, Miss. It be me. I brung you the water you asked for and a towel.” He had a threadbare white linen rag draped over his shoulder. He gently handed to her before he set the bucket on the floor.

  “Red, I need to ask another favor of you,” she said.

  He eyed her warily. “Yes?”

  “Could you bring me writing supplies? I must to write a letter to my guardian.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, Miss. Cannot.”

  “Certainly you can!” she replied a little tartly. After a deep breath, she smiled at him. “I need to let them know I am alive. That is all I will write, that I am quite well, and they should pay the ransom.” She picked up the newspaper and rattled it. “You heard Rose. There is an article in the paper that says I have been murdered. If Mr. Archer believes me to be dead, he will not pay the ransom. You will not get anything. Surely, you see that?”

  “Perhaps.” He scratched his head. “But—”

  “Oh, do be reasonable. Have you heard anything to indicate they have decided to pay?”

  “No, Miss, and it is a bit of a pickle.” There was a hard gleam in his eye that made her shiver. He’d been in contact with the other man and there had not been any money. If the Archers didn’t pay the ransom, she would, indeed, end up dead or worse, married to her kidnapper and dead shortly thereafter.

  She intended to live a long and interesting life exploring other dead peoples’ tombs along the banks of the Nile.

  As she gazed at Red, the look in his eyes made her wonder if the idea of killing her was more attractive to his partner than marriage, even a temporary one.

  She shivered and renewed her plea. “You must see my point. We simply have to let Mr. Archer know I am alive. I will urge him to meet the terms of the ransom as quickly as possible so that I may be released. That is what we all desire, is it not?”

  He shrugged and turned toward the door. “Mayhap I can find a bit of paper and such.”

  “Thank you!” Charlotte said, following him to the door. She lightly touched his sleeve. “It is the only alternative, you know.”

  He eyed her but didn’t agree. After he shut the door, Charlotte sat with a thump on the only chair in the room.

  Please let him bring me what I need.

  He didn’t return until after dark. However when he did arrive, he carried a storm lantern in one huge fist and a crumpled paper and pencil in the other.

  “This will have to do,” he said when he caught her gaze on the writing supplies. “Could not get no quill nor pot of ink. They all know I cannot write. What would I be needing with such things?”

  “This is quite all right, Red. Lovely!” She smoothed the crumpled, coarse paper out on her rickety table and stared at it for a few minutes before writing.

  Red leaned over her, as if trying to read.

  “Shall I read it as I write?” she asked. She gazed up at him, eyes wide, holding the pencil over the paper.

  He grunted his agreement and stayed where he was, standing behind her chair, hanging over her shoulder. She stifled her irritation and resumed writing.

  “Dear Mr. Archer,” she said, scribbling those exact words and saying them aloud. “I wish you to know I am quite safe for the moment and in excellent health. However, you must, by now, realize I am at the mercy of a pair of dangerous kidnappers. Please, I beg of you, pay the ransom they ask as soon as possible.” She paused, licking the tip of the pencil. Now was the tricky part.

  She wrote, “I feel certain I am still in London, held in an attic. My jailor is an extraordinarily large, red-haired man called Red, and there is a maid named Rose. There is also a white, three-legged dog. The second kidnapper is a gentleman. I do not know his name and cannot describe him, except he is fairly short. That is all the information I can give you. Sincerely, Charlotte Haywood.”

  However, what she said out loud as she wrote was quite different. “I am being treated very well and have been fed and entertained, so do not worry overmuch on my behalf. However, I do not believe they will continue to treat me well if the ransom is delayed. Please pay with all speed, your loving ward, Charlotte Haywood.”

  She lay the pencil down and folded the note in thirds before twisting it into a screw. “You will take this directly to my guardian, Mr. Archer?”

  Red gingerly took the paper, eyeing Charlotte. “You wrote what you said?”

  “Yes, certainly.” She stared unblinkingly into his eyes.

  Please do not show it to your horrible associate. He’ll kill me if he reads it. Please just take it to the Archers. She stared at him, silently urging him to do as she desired, and touched his hand as if that gesture could impel him to do as she wished.

  “Aye. I will take it.”

  She smiled. “Once they know I am still alive, they will pay the ransom. You will see.”

  “I hope so.”

  “So do I,” Charlotte replied.

  How many places were there in London with scruffy, white, three-legged dogs, a giant named Red, and a maid named Rose? Her clues had to lead the Archers to her.

  Red left, barring the door behind him, however as soon as she was alone, doubts plagued her. She’d addressed the note to her guardian, but perhaps she should have sent it to Nathaniel. She remembered their discussions. He was intelligent for an aristocrat.

  She definitely should have addressed it to him.

  ****

  Nathaniel and Cheery Gaunt both arrived at the Archer’s residence simultaneously. Nathaniel clapped his friend on the shoulder and the butler ushered them up the stairs to the sitting room. Lady Victoria sat on a low sofa, leafing through a journal while Archer paced and informed her of his plans for the day.

  “This just arrived, sir,” the butler said, handing a twisted scrap of paper to Archer.

  “What is it?” Nathaniel asked, taking a seat and stretching out his long legs. He stifled a yawn. Despite his late arrival home and the events of the preceding evening, his servants had found two damsels hidden in his bed chamber: one under his bed and one in his wardrobe.

  It had taken him an hour to relax enough to fall asleep. He had not nodded off until the sun was already peeping through the heavy blue damask curtains of his chamber. By noon, he was awake and unable to sleep any longer.

  All he could think about was M
iss Haywood. Had the murderer gotten her, too, as the newspapers suggested?

  “Good God!” Archer exclaimed, handing the paper to Gaunt. “Read that!”

  Cheery read through the note quickly and smiled in his sardonic way. “Clever girl.”

  “What is it?” Nathaniel asked, sitting up.

  “Read it for yourself.” Cheery handed him the wrinkled paper.

  “Thank God she is alive! How did she manage to get this note to us?”

  “I take it that at least the large man by the name of Red is amenable to helping her.”

  “Do you think he will help her escape?” Nathaniel stood and paced to the window and back.

  Cheery shook his head, his crooked smile twisting his lips. “No, but at least she can communicate through him and send us information.” He twitched the paper away from Nathaniel and studied it again. “I doubt this man, Red, can read, or he would never have let this note reach us.”

  “Yes, and she’s in London—or at least she thinks she is. In an attic.” Nathaniel ran a hand through his hair. “Damn! It is nearly July. Do you have any idea how hot it gets under the eaves! What an abysmal place to hold her. We must find her, and soon.”

  “I agree,” Cheery replied dryly. “But despite the physical discomforts of staying in an attic, she is actually safe and from the sound of it, doing quite well.”

  “What do you mean, ‘doing quite well’? She is probably frightened out of her wits! Do you have any idea what torments she must be suffering?” Nathaniel asked.

  Cheery cocked his head to one side and eyed him. “Does she sound frightened to you?”

  “Of course she does not,” Archer interjected. “She is brave, and she will keep her wits about her.”

  “Bloody hell!” Nathaniel felt like a skewered capon slowly turning over a fire. He longed to see Charlotte again and had to know if she was unharmed. Worse yet, he missed her. “She is begging us to pay the ransom. She must be terrified.”

  “Hardly begging,” Archer murmured.

  “May I keep this note?” Cheery refolded the paper and placed it carefully in an inner pocket of his jacket before standing.

  Nathaniel eyed him, wanting to take the scrap of paper back. It was his only link to Charlotte. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Try to locate her, of course.”

  “I thought you were working to clear me of murder?”

  “I believe it might be possible to do both.”

  Lady Victoria laid her fashion journal on her lap and clasped her hands on top of it. Despite her calm demeanor, her eyes were circled with dark shadows. “Do sit down, Your Grace. Would you care for some tea?”

  Nathaniel made another circuit around the room. “No. I intend to scour London until I find Char—Miss Haywood.”

  “Mr. Gaunt will find her,” Lady Victoria said. “I am sure of it”

  Archer nodded in agreement with his wife.

  Stung, Nathaniel replied, “I will find her, damn it!”

  “Two of us can search more quickly,” Cheery said. “In the meantime, Mr. Archer, you might wish to get those funds together.”

  “It will not be done quickly, no matter how much anyone begs,” Archer replied. “The bastard wants a fifty thousand pounds. That is nearly her entire fortune. Her estates will have to be sold and her investments in the funds liquidated. It will take time.”

  “Then start on it. I will liquidate some of my own investments,” Nathaniel said.

  That was a hefty ransom. His own money was tied up mostly in land with an additional thirty percent of his wealth invested in the funds and various other vehicles. He wasn’t sure he could cover more than sixty or seventy percent of the ransom with easily convertible, unentailed assets.

  However, if he did not supply at least a portion, Charlotte would be reduced to a pauper. She would never have enough to travel to Egypt.

  Rage seethed inside him. He tamped it down, molding the emotion into something far colder and more deadly.

  “I will take the east end. Bethnal Green for starters and then Whitechapel,” Nathaniel stated in a hard voice. The kidnappers were sure to be poor and most likely hiding their victim in one of the slums. One of them had not been able to read, or they’d never have gotten Charlotte’s note.

  They were uneducated. Impoverished. “You take the west.” He glanced at Cheery.

  Gaunt nodded, although his black eyes glinted with sardonic amusement at being elected the one to investigate Society’s most exclusive homes in Mayfair and Charing Cross, while a duke visited the slums to the east.

  “We are wasting time. Let us start before anything else happens,” Nathaniel said, striding out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A detective officer should possess intelligence, tact, and good common sense, the faculty of obtaining information from others, and at the same time keeping his own counsel and opinions. — Constable’s Pocket Guide

  Red showed up again the afternoon, shortly after one PM. He brought a small slate with him. Charlotte glanced at the slate and tossed it on the bed. It was far too tiny for practical use.

  She got down on her hands and knees and wrote out the alphabet and parts of words like “th.” They had the entire rough, wooden floor to use as their slate.

  “I will never learn,” Red groused, staring down at the letters Charlotte had chalked on the wooden floor.

  She stared at her handiwork, frowning. “You will learn. We simply have to find the best method.” She sat on the floor again and started drawing swift little pictures next to each letter. An apple next to “A,” a bumblebee next to “B,” a whiskered cat head next to “C,” and so on.

  When she finished, she stood back up and dusted off her hands and knees. She pulled a splinter out of her palm and sucked on the sore spot.

  “Now,” she said. “I have drawn pictures of things that start with the letters next to them. Let us try again.”

  This time, Red caught on more swiftly, much more quickly than she anticipated. She began to think she had been mistaken about his intelligence. She studied his broad back as he bent over, pointing to each letter and calling it out.

  His shambling gait, coarse clothing, and round, scarred face made him appear like an overgrown child.

  However, he had certainly managed to keep her away from his partner. He’d kept her safe.

  When he made it through the alphabet, he turned to her with a smile stretched across his broad face. “That be it, then?”

  “Not quite,” Charlotte replied. “Now, I want you to sit here with your back to the letters I have drawn on the floor. Take this slate.” She handed it to him. “You are going to write out the letters.”

  “But what if I don’t remember all of them?”

  “I will call them out. You simply write them, precisely the way I wrote them on the floor. Are you ready?”

  This process was a little slower, and there were several letters he couldn’t remember how to form. His writing scrawled across the slate, and there was with barely room for more than three or four characters before he had to wipe it clean.

  After managing to scratch out the entire alphabet, Charlotte made the bold move of taking the slate away from him. “You will have practice every day. As long as I am here, you may join me.”

  “I mayn’t come up every afternoon. Today’s me free time.”

  “You are employed?” she asked belatedly remembering he had already mentioned being a stable lad.

  He snorted. “Of course I be employed. I have got a regular job—right good, too.”

  “Then why did you resort to kidnapping me? I thought—”

  “It is that Rose. I told you, she will not marry me unless I can read and better meself. I have saved up nearly five hundred pounds, but it is not near enough.” He rubbed the back of his neck with thick fingers. “I have done a few odd jobs on the shady side in the past, they pays rather well, ye see. So I picks up what I can to put aside a bit more.”

&n
bsp; “Surely five hundred pounds is enough to marry?”

  “Mayhap, but I have me eye on a tavern by Badger’s Mount. The Spotted Badger, it is called. Me third cousin once removed is expecting to retire. He wants to sell out. If I could get me hands on the rest of the price, I would buy it right quick. Then Miss Rose would sees as how I have lots of ambition to better myself.”

  Charlotte smiled. Red was a kind, personable man and would do very well in such a situation. She could imagine him being extremely effective in dealing with any inebriated or overly-excited patrons, and clever Rose would ensure they were not cheated. It was the ideal situation for the pair.

  “So you agreed to kidnap me to get the ransom?”

  “Aye. I am to get a thousand pounds. Enough for the down payment, at any rate, and then some.”

  “A thousand?”

  He nodded.

  Anger quickened her blood. She was fairly sure his partner was demanding for far, far more than a few thousand pounds.

  Of course, it was none of her concern. She supposed she ought not to be too distressed that Red was not getting as much of her fortune as he should. However, it was one more annoyance out of the hundreds plaguing her. She’d rather Red get it all than the gentleman who had undoubtedly planned her kidnapping.

  She rather liked the big oaf. He’d been gentle and kind to her. He’d been the big brother she had never had. Or the overgrown child she would never bear.

  “Tell me about yourself?” she asked, not wanting to be left alone to dwell on Miss Mooreland and all the difficulties growing outsides the confines of the attic.

  He eyed her for a moment, and then shrugged. “I suppose it will not hurt. I started life as a farmer. When I was well growed, me Dad said I was a fine, brawny lad and got me apprenticed to a prize fighter. Won a few bouts, but me manager got himself killed, so I took on other employment. Now I work in the stables and do odd jobs and the like.”

  “I see, well, never mind,” she said at last. Red had obviously never had much of a chance to develop anything other than brutish muscle. “Something will work out and you shall have both your tavern and Miss Rose. Right now, however, you must buckle down and learn to read.”