The Reluctant Duchess

by Winchester, Catherine

The messenger got down from the cart with his hands raised in surrender, and backed away as Frederick approached.

  “Is it all here?” Frederick asked, looking at the trunks in the wagon.

  “F-far as I know.” The messenger stuttered.

  Frederickrick opened a trunk and saw it filled with gold goblets and platters. He opened a smaller bag and saw it was filled with jewellery.

  “Good enough.” He climbed onto the wagon’s perch and urged the horses on.

  As he approached the bushes where the others were waiting, he almost couldn’t believe that it had been so easy! Why hadn’t he thought of ransom earlier as a means of raising money? This was child’s play.

  The others took a quick look in the trunks, threw some blankets over them as a disguise, then mounted their horses and rode behind him.

  Frederick hadn’t felt like eating this morning as he was too nervous but now he felt positively ravenous. He slowed his cart until the others pulled level.

  “I don’t know about you chaps but I’m starving, what do you say we stop at the next coaching inn and get some lunch?”

  “Can’t leave the wagon.” B said. He was generally the grumpier of the two fellows.

  “Oh come on, I’m starving!”

  The nicer of his companions, H, indicated for them to pull behind so they could chat. He didn’t know why he couldn’t know these men’s names but Old John always referred to them by letters, never names.

  Frederick looked back occasionally and almost always found them looking at him. He didn’t like the look in B’s eyes.

  “Everyone deserves a last meal,” H argued with his friend.

  “Not him!”

  “Even him. Come on, what harm can it do? We’ll stay with the cart and he can bring us sandwiches out or something.”

  B didn’t look convinced.

  “Plus, if we let him eat and drink all he wants, he’ll be much more compliant when we do him in.”

  That convinced B. “All right, but we both stay with the wagon at all times.”

  “Agreed.” H sped up to deliver the good news to Frederick, who grinned and urged the cart horses to go faster.

  “We must have missed them,” Richard said as he looked out of the tollhouse window. They were about 15 miles from Hounslow Heath and it was now almost three p.m. “Even a lame horse could have got here by now.”

  “Let’s just give it a little longer,” Sampson advised.

  Isaac was a mile or so down the road, at the crossroads where the north road met with this lower road, pretending to check his horse’s hooves whenever anyone passed. If he saw Frederick, he would take note of the direction he took and could gallop back here in under two minutes.

  Their horses were saddled and ready to go, tethered in the back of the tollhouse, out of sight from the road.

  “Cart!” called the toll keeper from the bay window, where he was able to observe the road. He had been kind enough to call out all approaching carts, wagons and coaches since they arrived. He went out to collect his toll and lower the tollgate, giving Richard and Sampson the opportunity to peer out at the road from behind the kitchen curtains.

  “It’s him!” Richard hissed.

  “He looks a bit worse for wear,” Sampson noted from the exaggerated way he was laughing with the toll guard, who wasn’t laughing in return.

  “Hmm, but who are those men with him.”

  “You sure they’re with him?” Sampson asked. “They’re paying separately.”

  “They’re with him,” Richard sounded sure. “Maybe Old John didn’t trust Frederick and sent his men along too.”

  “Makes sense, I don’t even know him and I wouldn’t trust him.”

  “All right, let’s get the horses.” Richard started towards the back door but Sampson grabbed his arm.

  “We have to lag behind or we’ll spook them.”

  “I know,” Richard sighed. It was clear that he didn’t want to. Now that he had them within his sights, he wanted to beat the location out of Frederick.

  “At least it’s three on three, so our numbers are evenly matched.”

  Richard nodded and at a much more sedate pace, headed out to the rear of the tollhouse, leaving a five shilling tip on the counter for the tollhouse guard.

  Sampson was dressed in Richard’s finery and top hat, whilst Richard was dressed as a steward, complete with a cloth cap to make him less recognisable. Isaac was dressed as he usually was, much like a tradesman.

  Knowing that he couldn’t hold him back for much longer, Sampson let Richard go first. He was impatient but he wasn’t foolish and would never do anything to risk Annabelle and Lavinia.

  As soon as he was out on the road, Richard took out a telescope he had discovered at Frederick’s home and looked ahead. It had a magnification of around 15, so he could easily keep them in view whilst to them, he was just a dot on the horizon.

  He allowed himself to fall further behind, knowing that the road ahead was relatively straight and flat for a while. He was oddly thankful that the south of England isn’t known for its hills, because he was sure that following them like this wouldn’t be possible in a landscape such as the Peak District or the Highlands.

  He soon came upon Isaac, who mounted his horse. They walked side by side, as Richard brought Isaac up to speed on the little that he and Sampson had learned. Isaac agreed that Frederick was drunk and had even seen Frederick sip from a hip flask as he passed. He also agreed that the other riders were with Frederick and that they had observed him closely, whilst Frederick had seemed almost oblivious to him.

  Isaac fell back then, to walk with Sampson until it was time for a change. It had been agreed that every thirty minutes, one of the pair behind would canter ahead and replace the front horse and rider, just so it wasn’t obvious that the same person was always behind, and it seemed as though they were turning off the road and new people were replacing them.

  When the road was straight, the head rider fell back and when it curved, they sped up a little, so as to always keep the cart in sight.

  They had been riding in this formation for just over an hour when they saw Isaac slow almost to a halt ahead of them. Richard and Sampson sped up to see what the problem was and as they approached, they could see that Isaac had the telescope pointed away from the road.

  “They turned off down a country lane. Look just to the right of that large oak tree,” he explained handing Richard the telescope.

  He quickly found the cart and riders, then followed the path of the lane.

  “Where on earth are they going? There’s nothing down there.”

  “Could be a farm house, could even be where Annabelle and your mother are being kept,” Isaac suggested.

  Richard agreed that the remote location was perfect for keeping hostages but something didn’t feel right.

  “How is your cross country riding?” he asked the others.

  “Long as there are no six foot bushes, I should be all right,” Sampson answered.

  “Me too,” Isaac agreed.

  “All right then, gentlemen, stick close to the bushes, trees, anything that will give you some cover and don’t get too close.”

  With that, Richard spurred his horse on to jump the ditch into the neighbouring field.

  “Where is this stream?” Frederickrick asked. Travelling down this rickety, potholed road was doing awful things to his backside.

  “Not far.” H answered.

  “It would have taken less time to travel to the next toll! They have plenty of water, you know.”

  “Look, there it is,” B said, pointing. “Now for the love of God, shut up with your whining!”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that!”

  “Oh, I dare! Come on, fat boy, see if you can take me, I dare ya!” B got down from his horse and roughly pulled Frederick from the cart, tossing him to the ground. “Come on, you swish drunkard, show me what you’ve got!”

  Frederick got to his feet and swung a punch that B easi
ly missed, sending Frederick staggering to keep his balance.

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  H got down from his horse and sighed at B’s theatrics, as he tethered it to a handy tree. He also secured the horses pulling the cart, then took his pistol out.

  Frederick took another swipe at B and this time fell on his face.

  “Come on, Sir, is that all you’ve got? Get up already!” B taunted as Frederick staggered back to his feet.

  “Why you-”

  A shot rang out and Frederick fell to the ground. B turned to see H wiping off his gun.

  “What did you do that for?” B demanded.

  “Didn’t your mother tell you not to play with your food?”

  “You’re the one who said to give ‘im a last meal!”

  “Because that’s just polite. Now help me drag his fat arse to the well and with any luck, he’ll never be found.”

  Richard had seen a lot of death in his time, being in the Army, it was hard to avoid but he had never witnessed such a cold-hearted, callous murder before. His first instinct was to run down there and see if there was anything he could do for Frederick, but that had been a close range shot and he knew that his chances of saving Frederick were minimal. What's more, they would have to fight the other two thugs and if they killed them, he would never find Annabelle and his mother.

  “We have to keep following,” Sampson said. “I don’t know why they did that or who’s in charge now, but they are still our only hope of finding Annabelle and the Duchess.”

  “They did it so we’ll blame Frederick,” Richard said. “If we hadn’t seen this, we’d just assume that he had gone abroad and keep searching for him and as long as we’re doing that, we aren’t hunting the real criminals.”

  “Plus, they get a larger cut of the gold,” Isaac added.

  “You realise that this means they can’t let them go, don’t you?” Sampson asked.

  Richard nodded tersely. Of course they couldn’t leave the victims to tell everyone what had really happened. He pulled his revolver from his belt and checked it. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t kill these men, not whilst there was the faintest hope that Annabelle and his mother were alive.

  Although their hands were bound behind their backs, Lavinia had finally managed to untie Annabelle’s hands and she had untied Lavinia’s. No one had bothered to check on them all day but they could still hear footsteps from below.

  “It’s been dark for quite a while now,” Annabelle said.

  During daylight hours, they’d had a few cracks of sunlight through the planks to illuminate the room but now that night had fallen, they could barely see their hands in front of their faces.

  “I know.” Lavinia sighed.

  Although they were free of their binds, they hadn’t made any further attempts to escape because Annabelle was in too much pain.

  Suddenly they heard a gunshot, followed by shouting and then more shots.

  “Frederick must be here,” Annabelle guessed, clinging to Lavinia as if her life depended on it.

  Lavinia nodded.

  The ruckus continued for a few minutes, until finally there was silence, then ominous footsteps climbing the stairs.

  “If you make it out of this, tell Richard how sorry I am, please?” Annabelle begged.

  “I will and if you make it out, tell him how proud I am of him.”

  “I promise. Thank you for being my friend, Lavinia.”

  “And thank you for being mine, my dear.”

  They had no candle to light the room tonight, so as the door opened with enough force to crash it into the wall, they could only see an ominous silhouette of the man standing there, his breathing ragged and uneven.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Without Frederick setting the pace, the other two men made good time back to the estate; one driving the cart and the other on horseback, riding behind him.

  Following them after dark proved much more difficult than during daylight, but Richard was used to night time attacks from his Army days. He felt he had the advantage over these men, who were surely city dwellers and untrained in combat, as long as he didn’t become over confident.

  When it became clear that they were returning to Frederick’s estate, Richard and Isaac veered off course, cantering around until they were ahead of the cart. They stopped behind a dense patch of trees, left the horses tethered and ventured back towards the road by foot. Richard found a bush that was easy enough to see through but that should keep him hidden, whilst Isaac crossed the road to wait on the other side.

  They heard the cart before they saw it and Richard prepared to take aim at the one on horseback, the one who had shot Frederick. He was the more dangerous of the two and they could afford to lose one of them. He wished that he had his Army bayonet as he was more practiced and a far better aim with that weapon, but a revolver was all he had. He took aim, thankful that the moon was at least out, if not full, and fired.

  Knowing that the flash from the gun would give away his location, he scrambled a few feet away as he observed the scene. The rider was down but alive and the other one was drawing his gun. Isaac fired from the other side of the road, distracting them for long enough for Richard to take another shot at the fallen rider. The shot hit its target and he stopped moving.

  The driver didn’t know where to point and shoot, so he emptied all four barrels of his pepper-pot gun into the woods.

  Richard stood up, his gun aimed at the driver as he approached the unsettled horses, grabbing the closest one’s bridle. Isaac came out of hiding too and they soon they heard a horse cantering up from behind.

  “There, boy, it’s all over now,” Richard soothed the horse, patting its neck before turning to the driver, who was still aiming his empty gun at him. “You’re surrounded; throw down that useless gun or join your friend over there.”

  The driver looked to his friend, who had a rather nasty head wound, then threw his gun away as instructed.

  “Good, now tell me where your friends are keeping my mother and-” lover didn’t even begin to explain what Annabelle was to him. “My heart, and I may just let you live.”

  “T- there’s a farm, an empty one. A f-farmhouse, I mean. About a mile from here. He’s there, with your women.”

  “Who is ‘he’?”

  “Old John.”

  “What's Old John’s real name?”

  “John I think, that’s what everyone calls him.”

  “All right, what’s the name of this farmhouse?”

  “I don’t know, I didn’t know it had one.”

  Richard pulled the hammer of the gun back.

  “Wait! It’s got a well pump to the left of house and a tiny barn on the right and it’s sort of L-shaped and its roof was missing half its tiles. Frederickdie said it had been empty for two years or so.”

  “How many others are there?”

  “Four, Old John and three other fellas.”

  “Tie him up.” Richard told Isaac, then he went to speak to Sampson, although he kept his gun trained on the driver. “How far away from the estate house do you think we are?”

  “Judging by where we turned off, maybe a mile in that direction.” He pointed north.

  “Very well, you ride there and get the garrison, if they’re still around, the steward should recognise the house from that description and our general direction.”

  “You’re not going in alone, are you?”

  Richard shook his head. Although his first instinct was to rush in and rescue the women he loved, his military training told him that it was the best way to get them all killed. “We’ll run this cart off the road and Isaac and I will make our way on foot. Hopefully by the time the Cavalry arrive, we’ll know a little of the lay of the land.”

  “All right but be careful. You want me to take him to the soldiers?” Sampson nodded towards the driver.

  “Sure.”

  Isaac bound his feet as well, then they secured him behind Sampson’s saddle, his legs o
n one side of the horse and his head on the other.

  The first house they came to was clearly occupied, although it was in dire need of some repairs. The second house they saw had smoke coming from the chimney but many of the roof tiles were missing and the door was leaning against the frame, having been pulled from its hinges.

  Richard paused for a moment to get his breath back, then he and Isaac walked around the house, carefully staying under cover of the trees.

  “I only see two,” Richard whispered. One in particular kept looking out of the window, clearly waiting for the cart. He wondered if that was ‘Old John’. They circled back around to the side of the house and waited there.

  The snap of a twig behind him caused Richard to turn and he saw the Captain peering out from behind a tree, holding a broken twig. He and Isaac made their way over to him.

  “What's the situation?” the Captain asked.

  “There’s supposed to be four kidnappers in there, but I can only see two.”

  “Did you see the hostages?”

  “No sign but I think they’re on the first floor.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a window at the front that’s boarded up, it’s the only one like that.”

  “I’ll tell my men to avoid hitting the first floor then. Here’s the plan; there’s only four of them and they can’t have that much ammunition between them. One of my men will fire to try and draw them out and get them to waste bullets, then we go in two teams; one in the front entrance, one in the back.”

  “Sounds good,” Richard agreed.

  “Don’t waste your own ammunition firing at the house; we have plenty to spare but you don't, so keep your gun for when we go inside.”

  Richard nodded his understanding, then the Captain headed back into the trees to talk to his men. For the next few minutes, Richard could hear the soft noise of men moving through the surrounding area and when all went quiet, a single shot rang out.

  Thirty seconds later a series of shots began as gunfire was exchanged. There was a lot of yelling from inside the house but the soldiers were silent and efficient. None of the kidnappers came outside but their fire became much less frequent, until finally there was a roar of “NOW!” and Richard rushed the house, the soldiers beside him.