He gave her a mocking little bow and swung her onto the floor as the orchestra launched into a waltz.
When the dance was over, Stimson returned her to where she had been sitting, but Aunt Gertrude was not there. Marcus and Harriet were engaged in conversation some distance away.
“Shall I sit with you, then?” Stimson asked.
“Oh, no. That will not be necessary.” She patted his arm and sat down. “I am sure you are engaged for the next dance.”
“Well, I am, but—”
“Miss Richardson?” A liveried footman addressed her.
“Yes?”
“You are wanted in the ladies’ withdrawing room.”
“Oh. Thank you. See, Robert? You need not worry at all. I am off on a mission of mercy—Lady Hermiston probably has a problem with a hem, or some pins.”
She left the ballroom and stepped into the hallway, which was much darker, being lit with a few gas lamps along the wall. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The hall was wide with large, classical statues. There were several small rooms across from the ballroom. One of these at the far end had been set aside for the ladies.
As she hurried past one of the giant figures, she glimpsed a doorway and it crossed her mind fleetingly that the door seemed ajar. However, it was not the ladies’ room, so she hurried past it.
Too late, she sensed movement. Suddenly, she felt a blow to her head and everything went dark.
Thorne had attended this affair with the same purpose the Lord Mayor had in mind—politics. He also thought he might get a moment with Annabelle. He had not been surprised to see Helen Rhys and her brother here, but he was rather surprised when she turned out to be his dinner partner.
“What a happy coincidence this is,” she said brightly.
“Yes, it is.” He kept his voice politely neutral, but he wondered how much of a “coincidence” it truly was. A word and a coin to a footman could easily change place cards for all but the most exalted guests.
He knew Helen would welcome the idea of becoming the Countess of Rolsbury. He was not sure how much of her desire lay in the idea of becoming a countess and how much in her attraction to him. He made a point of not pursuing her. He did not single her out for attention, nor had he called at the Rhys residence.
Nevertheless, he usually found her pleasant enough company when he met her at affairs such as this—and her brother was a special friend. Thorne was, however, a little uncomfortable when she so readily possessed herself of his arm as the company made its way to the ballroom. She also hovered near him once they reached the ballroom, giving the general impression that their being together was planned—and a thoroughly natural turn of events. He recalled Aunt Dorothy’s comments about Miss Rhys’s “clinging” habits. Thorne was frankly glad when her partner came to claim her for the second dance. He quickly joined a political discussion with a group of men and then moved from one such group to another through the next two sets.
He was intensely aware of Annabelle’s presence. He seemed unconsciously to know where she was at all times. When she waltzed with Stimson, he recalled how it felt to have her in his own arms, and he envied Stimson. Still, he himself could not be thumping around a dance floor with a walking stick, he thought bitterly.
He saw the footman speak to her. She then hurried from the room as though she had been sent for. But he knew that all the people who might make a hurried demand on her were still in the ballroom. Lady Hermiston stood chatting with Lord and Lady Winters, the Wyndhams had just taken the dance floor, and the Harts were standing right beside him. Celia was talking idly of the choice of music.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled in intuitive warning. Such unexplained hunches had seen him through many a tricky situation on the battlefield. Something was wrong.
“Mrs. Hart—Celia—I am sorry to interrupt—but would you come with me, please?”
She looked startled, but to her credit, Celia did not bat an eye. “Certainly.”
As they left the room, he said, “I think Annabelle may need your help.”
Had they been a moment later, he would have missed the slash of white going into one of the rooms across the hall. Had she been lured into some sort of clandestine meeting? He knocked on the door, then turned the handle and pushed into the room. A door on the right clicked shut.
Annabelle lay slumped on the floor beside a long settee.
“See to her,” he ordered Celia as he quickly went to the other door.
It opened into another small room like this one. Both were relatively bare of furniture—containing tables and chairs that suggested these rooms usually functioned as small meeting rooms. The second room was empty.
“Damn!” he muttered, cursing the leg that kept him from the instant response he might once have managed. He returned to the two women.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Unconscious. There is a lump on her head. I think she was struck,” Celia said in amazement.
Frederick Hart came in just then. “What happened?”
“Annabelle has been injured—someone apparently struck her,” Celia said, still bending over the slumped form of her friend.
“I’ll get help,” Hart said.
“Discreetly,” Thorne cautioned.
“Of course.”
A few minutes later, Thorne and Celia had managed to get Annabelle on the settee, where she lay unmoving. A footman came in bearing a basin of water and a cloth. He was closely followed by Lady Hermiston, Lord and Lady Wyndham, and Frederick.
“What on earth happened?” Harriet asked, fear evident in her voice.
Thorne explained as much as he knew as Celia pressed a damp cloth to Annabelle’s head.
“Someone deliberately lured her in here?” Marcus asked.
“No, I think not. I think she was lured into the hall, struck, and dragged in here,” Thorne said.
“But—why?” Aunt Gertrude asked, digging in her reticule. “There! I knew I had a vial of smelling salts in here.” She handed the vial to Harriet, who now bent over Annabelle, too.
“Probably to compromise her,” Hart said.
“If that was the plan, it would surely have succeeded but for Lord Rolsbury’s quick thinking,” Celia said.
“Not quick enough.” Thorne shook his head in disgust. “Whoever did this got away.”
“Still—your instincts are as sharp as ever, Major,” Frederick said. “Annabelle has as much reason to be grateful to you as I do.”
The smelling salts and damp cloth were doing the trick. Annabelle moaned and tried to turn her face away from the vial Harriet held under her nose. “Please. Take it away,” she said. She tried to sit up.
“Just lie still for a few minutes,” Harriet said.
“What happened?” Annabelle asked.
“You were struck,” Celia explained. “Did you see the person who did it?”
“N-no. Just a flash of movement. I thought Aunt Gertrude needed me.”
“But I was in the ballroom,” Lady Hermiston said.
“Would you recognize the footman who brought you the message?” Thorne asked.
“I—I doubt it. He had brown hair. I remember that much.”
“That describes only about three-quarters of the staff,” Hart said.
“I’m sorry,” Annabelle said softly.
“Never mind, dear,” Harriet soothed, brushing a hand over Annabelle’s hair. “You are all right. That is all that matters.”
“Wyndham, may I have a word with you?” Thorne asked, motioning Lord Wyndham toward the hall.
Thorne closed the door behind them. “I did not want to alarm the ladies, but this is the second time Miss Richardson has been endangered.”
He explained about Annabelle’s horse being frightened in the park.
“And you said nothing before this?” Marcus asked.
“At the time, it seemed merely an accident. There was absolutely no reason to suspect foul play.”
“But now you do.
”
“After this—it seems likely.”
“I shall assign a servant to act as bodyguard whenever she goes out,” Marcus said.
Thorne was grateful that Wyndham did not ask what he had been doing out riding with Annabelle so early in the morning. Marcus merely gave him a penetrating look, which Thorne managed to return without flinching.
Eighteen
The lump on her head hurt the next day if she touched it, but otherwise, Annabelle suffered no ill effects from her experience. She had wanted to speak with Thorne—merely to thank him, of course—but as soon as he saw her into capable hands, he was gone.
She thought he might call the next day and, indeed, he did—along with Catherine and her husband and Luke, but by then the Wyndham drawing room was filled with well-wishers; the Wainwright party stayed only the requisite few minutes for a morning call and left. That evening, Annabelle did not feel much like going out.
Luke had arranged to go riding with her the second day after the Mayor’s ball—“if she were up to it.” She and a groom set out for the park at her usual time. Luke met her at the entrance and the groom dropped back a discreet distance.
“Were you just being friendly when you asked me to ride with you—or have you something on your mind?” she asked.
“A bit of both.” He grinned at her. “ ’Tis a good thing we became ‘just friends.’ You read me far too well. A husband will find it difficult to keep secrets from you.”
She sniffed. “In my opinion, he should not want to.” They rode in silence for a while. Finally her impatience won the inner war. “Well? Out with it.”
“I think I am in love.”
“Again? Or is it still Miss Wentworth?”
The color in his face intensified as he admitted, “No. Do you know Miss Brinkley?”
“Susan Brinkley? Only slightly. She is your new light of love?”
“Well . . . I think so. Oh, Annabelle, she is so lovely—”
“Believe me, Luke,” Annabelle said with a certain degree of sadness, “if you really loved her, you would not merely ‘think’ so.”
“You know this for a certainty?”
“Yes.”
Luke gave her a hard look, but she refused to elaborate, so he merely shrugged and began to sing the praises of Miss Brinkley—which mostly dealt with an alabaster complexion, golden curls, sky-blue eyes, and the voice of an angel.
Annabelle laughed.
“What? What is so funny?” he demanded.
“You.”
“Well!” His umbrage was all pretense. “I am glad you find my love life so amusing.”
“I think you love the idea of being in love. But do not, please, go offering for her until the praises you sing include something deeper than golden hair and blue eyes.”
“You sound just like Thorne.”
“Do I?” She wanted him to go on and speak more of his brother.
They were nearing the part of the narrow roadway where her horse had panicked before. The mare seemed nervous. Annabelle glanced behind them, looking for the groom. He was not there, but perhaps he was lagging behind a curve in the lane. There was a closed carriage approaching, however.
“A closed carriage here?” Luke said. “That’s strange. People usually want to be seen in the park.”
Luke and Annabelle moved their mounts off to the side to allow the carriage to pass. It did not pass. It stopped and three rough-looking men jumped out. Before she knew what was happening, one of them had jerked her off her horse and was trying to stuff her into the carriage. She screamed and swiped at him with her riding crop. He jerked it out of her hand and pushed her into the vehicle.
She fell, scraping her arm and knocking her hat off. She could see that Luke was no match for the other two ruffians, one of whom carried a thick piece of wood with which he hit Luke on the head. Luke went limp and the larger of the two shoved him into the carriage along with Annabelle, and then climbed up to join the driver as the one who had jerked Annabelle off her horse got into the coach itself.
The third man was left with the horses. The coachman whipped his team to a pace far too fast for the park, but at this hour of the morning, that was of little consequence.
The man with Annabelle and Luke showed her an ugly-looking knife. “If’n ye care any fer this fella, missy, ye’ll jest sit there real quiet like.”
He took a piece of thin rope from a pocket on the door and bound Luke’s hands behind his back. Then he pulled the curtains over all the windows. The light in the interior of the coach was what filtered in from slits of space around the curtains and from several small tears in them. Still, once her eyes adjusted, Annabelle could see her companions quite clearly.
“I demand to know where you are taking us,” she said.
“Oh, ye ‘demand,’ do ye?” he sneered.
“You cannot just go around kidnapping people in broad daylight.”
“ ‘Pears like we done it, though,” he said smugly.
Luke groaned and the man shoved him onto the seat with Annabelle. “There. I can see ye both better this way.”
Luke shook his head and winced. Annabelle tried to make him a bit more comfortable, but knew it was an impossible task with his hands tied behind him.
“Look,” Annabelle said. “Whatever you have been paid, we will pay more. Just let us go.”
“Talk don’t cost nothin’,” the man said. “Unless ye got the ready on ye, don’t guess I be over-innerested in yer offer.”
Annabelle sat back in dismay, eyeing the man. He appeared to be in his late thirties. His hair was probably dark brown, but it was incredibly dirty. He was missing two front teeth; he sported a scraggly beard; and he had an ugly scar that ran from his left temple to his chin. His clothing, also caked with grime, was that seen on dock workers.
“Tell me—please—who hired you and where we are going.” She kept her voice as calm as she could, though she was as frightened as she had ever been in her life.
“I reckon him that wanted ye will tell ye hisself. Now, jus’ settle yourselfs down. ’Tis a longish ride.”
“I cannot believe this is happening to me again,” Annabelle said in angry despair.
“Again?” Luke asked.
“Yes. Five years ago a penniless bounder tried to carry me off to Gretna Green. I was only fifteen!”
Luke’s eyes widened in surprise. “What happened?”
She raised her voice for the benefit of their traveling companion. “The Earl of Wyndham rescued me. I doubt not he will come after me again.”
“And the kidnapper?” Luke asked.
“He ended by shooting himself. However, he would have been transported to a penal colony in New South Wales.” She eyed the man to see how he reacted to this, but he merely gave her a toothless grin.
Annabelle hoped the movement of the carriage would make their captor drowsy and careless. At one point she thought his attention had wandered and she surreptitiously moved one of her hands behind Luke to try to untie his hands. However, the knots were very tight and when she glanced at the man opposite, his beady black eyes were alert and he turned the knife over and over in his hands.
“The minute he is loose, he dies, missy.”
Annabelle jerked her hand back to her lap.
“Not to worry, Annabelle. Thorne will find us somehow.” There was a hollowness to Luke’s attempt at confidence.
The carriage stopped once to change horses. The change was a hurried affair, and they were on the road again immediately. She thought they had been traveling for about two hours when the vehicle turned onto the bumpier route of a less traveled road.
When the coach finally stopped, one of the men jumped down from the driver’s seat. He opened the door and reached for Annabelle.
“I’ll take her, you see to pretty boy there,” he said to the knife-wielder.
“Watch ’er, Jake. She’s sneaky.”
Annabelle sank into the cushions, but the one called Jake was a huge man. He mere
ly reached in, grabbed her hand, and jerked her toward the door. She fell against him and was close enough to smell rank body odor.
“Ah, well . . .” Jake said appreciatively as his hands lingered in setting her on her feet. “I begins ta see what the swell in there wants.”
In there proved to be a three-story cottage that might once have been the home of a fairly prosperous tenant farmer. It did not look like a farm home now. A hunting box, perhaps? Whatever its current use, it apparently was mostly neglected.
By now, Jake had pushed her up the steps and into a small entrance hall. Luke and the knife were right behind them. Jake rapped on a door and did not bother to await a summons. He turned the handle and shoved Annabelle before him into what was a rather shabby drawing room.
“Ah, welcome, my dear. You are here at last.”
At first she saw only buckskin-clad legs, an arm encased in brown wool, and the top of a blond head. The rest of the speaker was obscured by the contours of the chair in which he sat. Then he rose.
Annabelle gasped. “You!” She looked into the mocking face of Viscount Beelson. “How dare you? How dare you?” Her voice rose an octave at least.
“For you, my own love, I would dare a great deal.” He looked up at the commotion in the doorway as the knife-wielder shoved Luke into the room. “Blood hell! What is he doing here?”
“He was with her. Couldn’t very well leave him to run for help.”
“Well, it was patently stupid—stupid!—to bring him here.” Beelson paced the room, enraged, and apparently trying to incorporate this turn of events into his previous plans. “Hmm. I need time to think. Put them both in that back bedroom on the second floor. And lock the damned door! Then the two of you take turns standing guard.”
Annabelle racked her brain for some means of stalling to postpone their being locked up. She stamped her foot and said, “This truly is the outside of enough! We have been shoved around and mistreated. We have been in that dark, smelly carriage for hours and I am hungry and my clothes are a mess and ... and ... I must use the necessary!” She managed to work a few tears into this diatribe.
Beelson just looked at her. “Cut the drama. It won’t work. Chet here will bring you some food. There’s a chamber pot in the room. Now get on with it!” he ordered the two men.
Miss Richardson Comes Of Age (Zebra Regency Romance) Page 20
