The Fugitive Heiress

by Amanda Scott

  Catheryn sighed. “I do not think you can know Lord Dambroke very well.” She grimaced as the man called Duff, coming unheralded from behind, yanked her arms together tightly behind her back. Evidently he had found a piece of rope. The old man seemed to have disappeared. Catheryn sighed elaborately and, with effort, kept her voice conversational. “You will, if you are silly enough to force the Lady Tiffany to marry you, only find that you have given Dambroke reason to make her an instant widow. And, likewise, I believe he would arrange for your disposal rather than part with a penny’s ransom, sir. He’s a bit of a pinch-purse, as I’m certain her ladyship must have mentioned once or twice.” Pausing, she noted with satisfaction that the shot had gone home. Tiffany had surely complained to him of Dambroke’s miserliness more than once.

  “Your best recourse, Mr. Lawrence, would be to leave now without her. Dambroke may still want to kill you, of course.” She shook her head sadly at such waste. “But at least you would travel unencumbered and, therefore, have better odds of escaping him.” Lawrence’s face reddened, and he looked about to sputter again. Duff, on the other hand, having finished binding her wrists, had moved closer to his leader and seemed to be listening intently. Catheryn went on with a little smile, trying to keep her mind off the unwavering pistol in the meantime. “There is also, of course, Captain Varling. A gentleman,” she mused, “a very easygoing gentleman, for the most part. But I do think he will not take kindly to your designs upon the Lady Tiffany or her fortune. If I am not mistaken, he sets great store by her happiness and has designs of his own. Her fortune matches his, you see, so much better than it matches yours, Mr. Lawrence. You interfere, sir, and I’m afraid the captain will be displeased.”

  Tiffany’s eyes were expressive and Catheryn, catching a glimpse of them, was relieved that her ladyship was sensible enough for once to keep still.

  “I can take care of Varling!” Lawrence sputtered. “I can take care of his bloody lordship, too, girl! You think you are so clever! I know what you’re up to. Don’t think for a moment that I don’t! You’ll try whatever you can to convince me to hare off and leave the lot of you right here. Which makes me wonder very much about his bloody lordship. Now I come to think of it….” He paused, studying her bland countenance with deep mistrust. “Yes, sir, now I think of it, where is he? If he’s coming, which I doubt, what are you doing here, Miss Clever Westering? It’s all havey-cavey, if you ask me. Dambroke would never have allowed a female to follow us if he’d known about it. Even I know him well enough to know that much. You’ve been bluffing, Miss Clever Westering. Not even a very good bluff, either. I’ll wager Dambroke don’t know a damned thing about all this yet.”

  “You lose, Lawrence.” The words, uttered softly but with an edge of steel, were followed immediately by the explosion of a pistol. Lawrence’s weapon spun away out of his hand and across the floor, coming to rest with a grating smack against the hearthstone. Lawrence grabbed his bleeding hand in an attempt to stanch both pain and flow, and turned furiously to face Lord Dambroke.

  XIX

  THE EARL STOOD IN the doorway, legs spread, a smoking pistol already shifted to his left hand, its primed and cocked mate securely in his right. He looked, Catheryn thought, for all the world like an Elizabethan buccaneer must have looked; though Edmund Caston, appearing behind him, rather spoiled the effect with his air of solid, prosaic competence.

  “I must say, my friend,” Dambroke went on in that same hard tone to Lawrence, “you do ask appropriate questions. I should like very much to hear the answers to several of them before we’re any of us much older.” He let his uncompromising gaze drift toward Catheryn.

  “You come in good time, my lord,” she said, feeling somewhat like a character in a play—hopefully one by Shakespeare rather than Sheridan. One did hope for a shred of dignity. And why must her heart choose this of all times to thud against her ribs? She inhaled slowly, willing herself to be calm, telling herself that it was only a reaction to the dreadful experience she had just gone through and not to the fury in his lordship’s steely blue eyes.

  Dambroke did not answer her but moved aside to allow Edmund, likewise and to Catheryn’s astonishment brandishing a pistol, to pass into the room. “Release them, Caston.” His voice was crisp as he gestured toward the captives. “You there!” he snapped at the coachman, once more hovering near Miss Westering. “Move away from her at once!” Cringing, the man did as he was told, and Catheryn soon felt Edmund’s strong fingers dealing with the knots. She watched Dambroke.

  “Are you all right, Miss Westering?” he asked when she began to rub feeling back into her hands. His glance was brief, but his expression caused her to moisten her lips. She was saved the necessity of answering by the clatter of booted and spurred feet across the kitchen floor heralding the rather boisterous entrance of Captain Varling and Lord Thomas, dragging the hapless and vociferously reluctant Uncle Jig between them.

  “Ho there, Dickon! What’s the ruckus?” Varling exclaimed after a swift visual search assured him of Lady Tiffany’s safety. “Look what we’ve got! Led us a chase through yon woods, but we brought him to earth all right and tight. What now?” He saw Caston about to release Tiffany and abruptly relinquished his hold on the old man. “Here, Caston! I’ll do that. Tend to the boy.” He knelt in front of Tiffany. “Are you all right, my lady?” Catheryn watched, thinking that, though his concern was much like Dambroke’s, his attitude was completely different, so gentle, so thoughtful. She looked again at the earl, mentally shaking her head at herself. Definitely getting in over your head, my girl, she mused contentedly.

  With a gesture from Dambroke, Mr. Lawrence and Duff sat down on a bench under the window, and the earl lowered his pistols, at the same time ordering Lord Thomas to keep an eye on the scoundrels. Thomas gave the old man a push, and he joined the others. Neither Tiffany nor Teddy had made a sound except for a slight squeal from her ladyship when the pistol discharged. Both had simply stared wide-eyed at their brother. Now, as Varling freed her, Tiffany began to respond to his anxious questions in a low murmur.

  “If that’s an explanation for this imbroglio, Tony, we’d all like to hear it, if you don’t mind,” Dambroke barked.

  Varling, his expression sober now, got up from his half-kneeling position beside Tiffany and turned to face the earl. “It’s as we speculated back at the Park, my lord,” he said quietly but with an odd touch of formality and a withering glance of contempt at the three men on the bench. “She had a note and thought it from me—one of my stupid jests. Idiotic child.” He glanced at her fondly. Dambroke’s mouth began to develop recognizably mulish lines at the corners, but the captain persevered. “Her ladyship got out to the carriage and those two ruffians,” indicating Lawrence and Duff, “just bundled her in. Made a neat job of it, too, since they must have pulled it off under the very noses of Clairdon’s link boys.”

  “I confess a certain curiosity about that bit myself,” asserted Lord Thomas sternly.

  “Don’t blame the boys, my lord.” Tiffany spoke quickly, pleadingly, but with a weather eye on Dambroke. “There was nothing for them to notice. The carriage pulled up and, as I ran down the steps from the garden gate, the door was flung open and the steps let down from within. I just hopped in before either of the boys could move to help me. Like a lamb to the slaughter,” she added bitterly. “James—Mr. Lawrence, that is—grabbed me and bundled me onto the floor in a blanket before I could even scream. Then he complained that he had no place to put his feet!”

  “By God!” Varling turned angrily toward Lawrence, hands clenched into ominous fists. The men on the bench shrank away involuntarily.

  “Tony!” Dambroke called sharply. “None of that, if you please. I want him well enough to travel. He’s got a journey ahead of him.” Reluctantly, the captain subsided.

  Now that Dambroke had laid his pistols aside and stopped the irate captain midstride, Mr. Lawrence began to recover himself. He straightened up on the bench, though he seemed to l
ack the temerity to rise. “Journey, my lord?” There was just a touch of insolence in the tone.

  “Yes, journey, Lawrence,” returned his lordship harshly. “You may consider yourself lucky that I choose to avoid scandal. My primary, albeit selfish, inclination was to school you to better conduct with a horsewhip before giving you over to the nearest magistrate. Instead, I choose to be lenient, provided you show some sense in the matter. I realize my sister led you to believe that she held a tenderness for you.”

  “I never did!” interrupted Tiffany in accents of mingled indignation and loathing.

  “You did, my love,” Varling reproved gently.

  “Did I, Tony?” He nodded, and Tiffany desisted at once, her whole attitude sobering as she turned to Lawrence. “I must apologize then, sir. I never meant to do so.”

  Lawrence was taken aback by her frank gesture but no more so, Catheryn noted, than the earl. Casting a startled look at his sister and one a bit more speculative at his friend, Dambroke continued, “I don’t care where you take yourself, Lawrence, so long as you put distance—great distance—between us. I’d heartily recommend volunteering for duty in America, if I thought the military would want you.”

  “Seems to me, you’re asking a great deal, my lord,” sneered Lawrence. “Seems to me, you ought to be willing to pay a bit to keep me away from London. I could tell a tale there, right enough.”

  “You won’t attempt such a foolhardy course if you value your life, Lawrence.” Varling’s voice was icier than Catheryn would have believed possible, and Dambroke looked about to add a comment of his own, when Edmund spoke up in his grave and measured way.

  “If you’ll pardon the obtrusion, Mr. Lawrence, there would be, if I may so speculate, little benefaction to yourself through such a course as you propose. It would not avail, sir. There is insufficient evidence to substantiate your … uh … tale. In short, sir, no one would believe you.”

  Duff, the erstwhile coachman, listened with awe. “Gawd damn,” he breathed. “Do he yammer like that alla time? I never ’eard the like afore.”

  Lord Thomas recognized a kindred spirit of sorts. “He does indeed,” he answered, not without a little pride. “Good as a play, ain’t he? My sister’s going to marry him, you know,” he confided in low tones. “Bound to improve her vocabulary out of all reason, don’t you think?” Duff only looked at him, and the byplay was forgotten when Catheryn picked up the thread of Edmund’s argument.

  “He’s right, you know, Mr. Lawrence. Against the word of their lordships and Captain Varling, not to mention myself and Lady Tiffany—”

  “And Maggie,” added Varling, now grinning.

  “Maggie!”

  “Aye,” answered Dambroke, watching her through narrowed eyes. “She’s at the Park. The disobedient chit followed them from London, Tony said. Like a damned puppy!”

  “Oh, good for Maggie!” applauded Miss Westering. “But you must see now, Mr. Lawrence. Lady Margaret can say that she was with the Lady Tiffany from the outset if necessary. And I daresay Lady Dambroke will arrive in the morning as well, with the duchess perhaps, and my aunt and uncle Caston,” she added, getting carried away.

  Dambroke waved her to silence and spoke pointedly to the rapidly deflating Lawrence. “All these arguments are impressive, my friends, but since the question will not arise, they are unnecessary. When I mentioned the military earlier, sir, I spoke facetiously. But I promise that if I so much as lay eyes upon you at any time in the future—and I shall make it my business to lay eyes upon you, if you cause distress to me or mine—I shall volunteer your services to his majesty’s Navy by making a gift of your person to the nearest interested press gang!”

  Lawrence blanched and Catheryn knew it was with good reason. Only about one-third of the crews aboard British naval vessels were regular sailors, due for the most part to the appalling conditions below decks. Many came from workhouses and debtors’ prisons. Some were even hardened criminals, allowed to volunteer simply because there were so few volunteers from the regular civilian population. In order to make up crews of a proper number, brutal press gangs worked the coastal villages and towns, waylaying the unwary and “pressing” them to shipboard duty. Wages were low, if paid at all, discipline was maintained with the bo’sun’s cat, and food consisted of jerked beef and hardtack. Duff and Uncle Jig looked green around the gills and Lawrence slumped, clearly having no doubt that Dambroke or, for that matter, Lord Thomas or Varling wielded sufficient power to “arrange” his impressment, should the notion seem auspicious.

  “Where will I go? How will I live?”

  But Colby had had enough. “No business of ours, now, is it? You be grateful to get away in one piece, my lad. Abducting heiresses ain’t no small thing, you know.” He glanced at Dambroke. “Be dawn before we get back, my lord. Do we use his carriage or take Lady Tiffany and the lad up with us?”

  Dambroke cast an eye over the exhausted pair and opted after a bare moment’s thought for the carriage. “Tripler will be wanting his cattle, in any case. Team at the Running Bull yours, Lawrence?”

  Lawrence shook his head. “Hired cattle,” he muttered. “Rig, too.” He offered no protest to the earl’s decision. The starch seemed to have gone out of him entirely and he stayed where he was, nursing his injured hand. Since he had used his neckcloth to bind it, he was disheveled as well as defeated. Duff and Uncle Jig continued to eye the others warily, but neither offered comment.

  Colby and Caston went to bring the horses to the door, and Teddy remained sleepily in his place; but Tiffany stood up at last, moving her wrists and fingers experimentally. The blanket slid off one shoulder and she made a startled grab for it, but Captain Varling took it from her firmly.

  Catheryn and Dambroke stared at the costume thus revealed in all its splendor. Tiffany had chosen to appear at the ball as Athena and, despite her ordeal, Catheryn thought she looked magnificent. Her costume was a classical, sleeveless chiton of white silk, banded beneath the breasts and around the ribs with gold cording. The simple gown was caught at one shoulder with a jeweled clasp, and she wore a gold band around her slender throat with matching bracelets high on each arm. Her raven hair was pulled back and swept up to fall in light ringlets, laced with gold thread, from the crown of her head to her neck. Gold corded sandals completed a costume that, though a bit daring perhaps, was hardly indecent and thoroughly becoming.

  “I’ve an extra cloak tied to my saddle, lass,” Varling said gently, breaking the spell. “I’ll fetch it.” Tiffany smiled gratefully and then cast an apprehensive glance at her brother. Hearing her quickly indrawn breath, Varling paused and followed her glance. Catheryn knew from the look on Dambroke’s face that Tiffany would face an unpleasant interview before she was much older. She didn’t know whether the costume or something else was responsible, but she was not surprised to see Varling hesitate with a puzzled look at his friend. “Dickon?” The earl turned his gaze upon him without altering his grim expression. “Lord, man, you look like a thundercloud.” Varling spoke with forced cheer. He paused, tugging unconsciously at a sidewhisker, as he looked first at Tiffany, then Catheryn, then back at Dambroke. “This isn’t the way I’d planned it, believe me, but I promised Maggie I’d keep you from eating them … well, Tiff and Catheryn—Miss Westering—and I suppose she meant Teddy, too, and….” He floundered.

  After a pregnant pause, Varling regrouped his forces and began again. “I’m doing this badly, I know, but if I’m to have any right to defend her … that is, them … that is, to debate the matter uppermost in your mind, my lord….” He floundered more, stumbling over his words in a most uncharacteristic fashion, as Dambroke’s continued silence seemed to make it more and more difficult for him to explain himself. The others simply stared at him. “I want … that is, I’d be honored … oh, damn it, Dickon! I want to marry Tiffany! If you approve, of course, and if she will have me, that is,” he added with a near panic-stricken look at his beloved. She was staring like the others and with her
mouth open in a most unladylike way, but the fight in her eyes put to rest whatever doubt anyone may have had on the subject.

  The earl frowned. “You want to what?”

  “Marry her. Take her to wife. Make her Lady Tiffany Varling. Someday Lady Stanthorpe, of course, but much later I hope. Oh, Dickon, I know I’m out of line. This is neither the time nor the place. You’re thinking that much, certainly, and you’re right! But I want her, my lord. I can handle her—keep her out of mischief, that is,” he corrected hastily with a sidelong look at Tiffany. “She minds me, Dickon. I don’t know why, but she does.” Catheryn stifled an involuntary chuckle, but her ladyship merely held her breath. Colby and Caston, choosing that moment to return, remained silent, sensing dramatics.

  “Why now, Tony?” Dambroke drawled, his eye on Catheryn. She knew he had not missed her chuckle.

  “Because you look like the very devil, my lord, like you want to crack their heads together, hers and Miss Westering’s. I want the right to defend her. I-I love her.” His voice trailed off self-consciously when he became aware of the general interest of his audience. In the ensuing pause, Duff was heard to confide to Uncle Jig that the big cove was right, sure enough.

  “Good as a play they are.”

  Dambroke glanced at them. “You are right about one thing, Tony. This is not the time or place to discuss the matter.” The tension in the room was abated somewhat during the captain’s odd proposal, but it began to deepen again when Dambroke eyed first one set of culprits, then the other. He ignored the three on the bench after that brief glance and turned back to Varling. “Whatever you think, I have a good many questions to ask each of them about this night’s work, and I will want straight answers, I promise you. But Teddy is nearly asleep and ought to be got home as soon as possible. He and I already have an appointment to discuss certain other matters. This episode can merely be included.” A small squirm on the settle betrayed that, despite closed eyes, Teddy was still awake and listening. Dambroke turned his attention to the ladies.