by Jayne Davis
“Who the devil are you?” Mr Carterton asked. Bella saw him glance at Molly and Fletcher, sitting in silence at their table, then at the strangers. His shoulders slackened as he straightened his fingers—had he been planning to fight? Luis would have done so, she was sure—and that would most likely have resulted in some or all of them being injured.
“The name’s Jasperson, from Bow Street. I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of kidnapping, along with your accomplices.”
Kidnapping?
Molly and Fletcher had stopped talking, and even the routine sounds of horses and carriages in the yard seemed to fade. Her escape was over, but worse than that, Molly and Langton would suffer for it. Fletcher, too, probably.
This must be her father’s doing.
“I did nothing of the sort, I assure you,” Mr Carterton said, his demeanour remarkably calm. “I am merely escorting—”
“You set out after her, didn’t you? That’s what a footman at your father’s house told Lord Marstone’s man. And she’s run off from her father. The ostlers said you all arrived on the London road. If you ain’t kidnapping her now, you should be taking her in the opposite direction.”
“Mr Jasperson!” Bella waited until he looked at her. “Mr Carterton has only just met us on the road; he could not possibly have kidnapped me.”
As she spoke, Billy began to cry.
“I left London of my own free will,” she went on. “The others cannot be accomplices, as no crime has—”
Billy’s cries had turned to screams, drowning out her words.
“Better take him outside, Mrs Fletcher,” Molly said, raising her voice to be heard above the noise. “If that’s all right with you, Mr Jasperson?”
The runner shrugged and jerked his head towards the door. Bella caught a wink from Molly, and her spirits lifted a little. Of course—Fletcher and Archer could avoid arrest.
As Fletcher left, the man holding Langton pushed him into the room, and he went to sit next to Molly. Bella waited until Billy’s cries were muffled by the parlour door. “As I was saying, Mr Jasperson, I have not been kidnapped, so there is no crime. I do not wish to return to London.”
“That don’t make no difference to me now,” the runner said. “I’ve got a warrant, and I mean to serve it, as well as return the young lady to her family.”
“She doesn’t want to go,” Mr Carterton put in. “If you return her, you will be the one doing the kidnapping.”
“She’s a minor, sir. The law considers she don’t know what’s best for her. I’m only doing what his lordship says.”
The law—and men made the law. Bella was too disappointed, too weary, to be angry. It was always the same—if she wasn’t too young to know or decide something, it would be because she was female.
She looked at Mr Carterton. “I’m sorry.” He’d done nothing but try to help her—even the parts she’d resented, such as warning her about Luis, had been justified. And now he was being arrested.
“Do not be,” he said, resuming his seat. “This will come to nothing. Marstone will not want to parade his family affairs in a public trial.”
There might be no trial, but she would be back under her father’s thumb. Mr Carterton knew that; she could tell from his grave expression.
He turned to Jasperson. “Did you find us by chance?”
Bella had been wondering that, too—although how he had found them so easily didn’t seem terribly important compared to the fact that he had.
“Aye,” the runner said. “His lordship sent his man off on the Bath road, but there’s many ways you could have got to Devonshire. Seemed to make sense to get to within a few miles of your destination and arrest you there. When we stopped here to change horses, one of Marstone’s men recognised Langton. Can’t say I’m sorry; it’s saved us all a couple of days.”
“An excellent plan,” Mr Carterton said. “Unfortunate from our point of view, of course. Now, may we finish our meal before we set off again?”
“Don’t see why not,” Jasperson said. “We can eat, too.” He looked at one of the grooms. “Go and order something; tell them to bring it in here. You two, you can eat yours by the door when it comes.”
“Don’t worry, Isabella,” Mr Carterton said, reaching across the table and squeezing her hand. “I’m sure—”
“Oy, no talking,” the runner interrupted. “I’m not having you cook up some plan to escape.”
She managed a smile at Mr Carterton as he withdrew the comfort of his touch.
Chapter 25
It took less time to return to London than it had taken to get to Salisbury, but only because Jasperson refused to stop overnight. Nick spent most of the journey sitting in silence next to the runner in a second chaise, the memory of Isabella’s defeated expression haunting him. In his urge to protect her, he’d come very close to launching himself at Jasperson. But however satisfying it would have been to plant a fist in the man’s face, he could not risk the women getting injured in the resulting struggle.
He’d set out to protect her, and he’d failed.
One mistake had been to underestimate how badly Marstone wanted to impose his will on his daughter. To get a runner travelling this far at short notice—and travelling hard—must have taken the offer of a sizeable reward. He should have ridden through the night himself.
But the main thing he hadn’t done was to consider Isabella—Bella—as a possible wife soon enough. He’d been so set on his original idea of a calm, mature woman who would be a good political wife, that Isabella’s impetuosity and rebelliousness had blinded him to her intelligence, her empathy. And her sense of humour, the way she enjoyed new experiences…
He stared out of the window. It was pointless to list her good qualities. None of that really explained the feeling that he wanted her for his wife, and his ‘requirements’ could go hang. If he’d started to court her properly, they could have got to know each other. If she had come to feel the same way about him, they might even have married with her father’s blessing.
Would it have been a misuse of his position as stand-in brother to attempt to court her? He couldn’t suppress a wry smile that had Jasperson regarding him suspiciously—Bella would have told him directly if he’d stepped out of line.
The outskirts of London finally came into view in the early morning light. That damned Portuguese still bothered him—what did she feel for him? He didn’t want Bella as a wife if she was in love with someone else.
“Stay here,” Jasperson ordered, as the chaise drew up outside Marstone House. “I’ll take you to Bow Street as soon as I’ve handed over Lady Isabella.”
Ignoring the runner’s order, Nick made to follow him out, but one of the accompanying grooms stood by the door and opened his coat to show a pistol. Nick sat back against the squabs again—it would be foolish to get injured or killed just to tell Bella not to give up, no matter how much he wanted to speak to her.
Bella and Molly crossed the pavement and mounted the steps to the front door. Bella looked towards him, but was hustled into the house by Jasperson before either of them could make any kind of signal.
Damn. Now all he could do was await Jasperson’s return, then try to talk his way out of incarceration when they reached Bow Street.
The butler stood to one side as Bella and Molly entered the hall, and a waiting footman shut the door behind Jasperson. The sound of the latch might have been that of a cell door closing.
“I’m not staying,” the runner said. “Just making sure Lady Isabella is delivered safely. I’ll return to see his lordship later in the day.”
“Very well.” Mowbray gestured to the footman to show Jasperson out again before turning to Bella. “His lordship instructed that you be taken to him as soon as you arrived, my lady. Follow me.”
Bella didn’t move. She was about to have her whole life dictated to her by her father, but she was not going to be ordered around by a servant. Her father was likely to lock her in her room for running away�
�what more could he do? “I will have a bath and a rest first. See that hot water is sent to my room.” She headed for the stairs, Molly following.
Mowbray stood frozen by the front door for a moment before hurrying after her. “My lady, his lordship was most insistent. He is not well. His physician insists that he not be upset.”
Bella stopped and turned, and the butler almost ran into her. “Then do not tell him I have arrived. If you tell him I am here and have refused to see him, then it is you who will be upsetting him.” She glared at the butler until he nodded. “Hot water?”
“Yes, my lady.”
Bella reached her room and flung off her bonnet with relief. The small victory over the butler was pointless—delaying her interview with her father would change nothing.
“You’ll feel more the thing after a bath, my lady,” Molly said, readying a set of towels. “What do you think happened to Archer and Fletcher?”
“Safely back in London, I hope.”
Aunt Aurelia walked in after a perfunctory knock on the door. “Bella, I’m sorry to see you back here. I never thought Marstone would go so far as to set the law on you and Carterton.”
Bella wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she was still in the nursery where Nanny might have given her a hug. Aunt Aurelia was now on her side, but she was not a hugging kind of woman.
Her aunt’s words triggered something that must have been lurking at the back of her mind. “Aunt, the runner said he had a warrant to arrest Mr Carterton. How did Papa even know Mr Carterton might come after us?”
“He called the morning you left,” Aunt Aurelia said, coming into the room and sitting down. “I told him you were heading for Wingrave’s place. I can only assume we were overheard—but why Marstone accused him of kidnapping, I’ve no idea. It was clear you’d run away long before Carterton arrived.” She tilted her head to one side. “Isabella, why didn’t you tell me Carterton was… interested in you? My brother might have accepted—”
“He’s not,” Bella said. Unfortunately. “Will asked him to look out for me in his stead, while he was away.” She eyed her aunt warily, but Aunt Aurelia only gave a wry smile. “He was trying to find out something he could use to persuade Lord Narwood not to marry me.”
“It seems there was even more deception going on than I knew about. A pity that’s his reason, though. I think he would have made a good husband.”
He would—she knew that now. But he’d denied courting her, and he’d escorted Jemima several times. Although there had been the way he’d looked at her when they talked in Salisbury…
Footsteps on the landing heralded the arrival of several footmen, the first bearing a bath and the others carrying buckets of hot water.
“You could attract Carterton if you tried, I’m sure,” Aunt Aurelia said quietly, her words hardly audible above the sounds of pouring water. “I’ll leave you for now, but best not to take too long over your bath—if Marstone finds you’ve been in the house half the day before he sees you, it’ll do nothing for his temper.”
“D’you want some breakfast, my lady?” Molly asked, once Aunt Aurelia and the footman had left.
“No, but you go and get some as soon as I’ve finished bathing.”
She couldn’t eat a thing. Not until she knew what her father was going to do next.
The coffee shop was getting busier, but no-one had asked Luis to move along yet. He ordered another drink that he didn’t want and, as it could still be considered the breakfast hour, more rolls. Eating them slowly, he turned a page in the newspaper now and then as if he was reading, wondering if he should be here at all. He was not going to assassinate someone at Don Felipe’s order, but he could just go home instead of trying to see Lady Isabella again. Yet he felt he had to make amends for his behaviour somehow, and she was the only person he could think of who might believe what he had to say without having him instantly arrested.
He resisted an impulse to look at the clock on the wall—one of the urchins he was paying would turn up when he had something to report from Grosvenor Square. There had been much coming and going at Marstone House the previous day, but the boys he had paid to watch had not seen anyone resembling Isabella. He wished he could watch himself, but he would be too conspicuous loitering around the square all day.
Half an hour later, one of the brats appeared in the doorway, managing to attract Luis’ attention before the waiter manhandled him out of the door again. Luis left enough coins on the table to pay his bill and stepped out into the street.
The child was waiting for him a few yards away.
“Well?”
The boy rubbed a sleeve across a runny nose. “Two chaises come, guv’ner. Two maids went into the house, and a man with them.”
“I’m not interested in maids,” Luis said.
“They went in the front, and the butler cove bowed to one of ’em.”
Luis handed over a sixpence. “Describe them. How tall were they?”
The child shrugged. “Normal size, I dunno. One was shorter than the other. Had dark hair, I reckon.”
It could be Isabella, although it seemed an odd time for her to be entering her home, not to mention the brat mistaking her for a maid.
“The second chaise?”
“No-one got out of that. They both drove away.”
“Well done.” Luis handed over another coin.
“My mates was watching, too,” the urchin protested, examining his meagre reward. Luis sighed, and gave him more. Then he held out a silver crown and the boy’s eyes widened.
“I need to talk to someone from the house,” Luis said. “Secretly. A footman, or a maid.”
The boy reached his hand out for the coin. Luis returned it to his pocket.
“It’s yours if you find me someone to talk to. They’ll get the same. Can you do that?”
The lad nodded so hard his cap slid back on his head.
“I’ll be in the Queen’s Head. Today. I need to talk to someone today.”
Nick settled into a parlour chair with a sigh of relief. Something to sit on that didn’t rock and sway, and with a softer seat than the chairs at Bow Street. He badly needed a bath, shave, and change of clothing, but for now he settled on a large mug of ale and some hastily prepared sandwiches.
“Better now?” Lord Carterton asked as he hobbled into the room.
“Much better, thank you.”
“I can’t believe that fool Marstone tried to have you arrested.” Nick’s father sat down.
“He did have me arrested,” Nick pointed out. Thankfully, not half an hour after Jasperson had delivered him to Bow Street, a clerk had appeared with a paper rescinding the arrest warrant. Jasperson had, reluctantly, agreed that he was free to go. “Thank you for sorting that out, but how did you know?”
“Wingrave’s man called to tell me this morning, not long after sun-up. He persuaded Hobson to let him see me.”
“Sorry about that, Father.” He’d seen sunrise himself from the chaise, hours before he or his father would normally be out of bed. Archer must have ridden hard to arrive so far ahead of the two post-chaises.
“No matter, I don’t sleep much these days anyway.” He chuckled. “I had no compunction in knocking that fool magistrate up and making him sort it out.”
“You went—?”
“Oh, don’t worry, boy. I took a chair, didn’t even have to climb into a carriage. Does me good to get out of the house now and then.”
Nick inspected his father anxiously, but he didn’t seem to be any the worse for his exertions.
“This won’t be the end of it, Nick. I suspect Marstone must have laid out considerable blunt to send a runner after you so quickly, and quite possibly bribed the magistrate, too.”
“Yes, I’d worked that out.”
“I suspect he’ll want some kind of revenge on you for attempting to thwart him.”
“What can he do?”
“Not much, probably, but he could cause scandal or gossip.” He struggle
d to his feet. “Not that a bit of scandal should bother either of us, unless it puts off your Miss Roper.”
About to correct his father’s assumption about Miss Roper, Nick thought better of it. He would explain, but later.
“Best get yourself bathed and have more breakfast,” his father went on. “I gather Marstone’s on his last legs, and he’ll want to force his will on as many people as possible before he pops off.”
Father was correct, as he usually was. Nick enjoyed soaking in a hot bath for half an hour, then shaved and donned clean clothes before going to the library. What he really wanted to do was to check that Bella was well, but that was impossible under the circumstances. Instead, he turned to the correspondence that had arrived while he’d been away. He’d only answered a couple of queries when Hobson brought in a sealed letter.
“There’s one for his lordship, too,” the butler said.
Quickly breaking the seal, Nick turned straight to the signature. Marstone, as expected. “Where’s my father?”
“In the parlour, sir.”
“Thank you, Hobson. I’ll take his letter to him.”
Nick handed the letter to his father and then quickly scanned his own. “Marstone demands I take Isabella to wife,” he said. The writing was too firm and neat to have been written by Marstone himself, but he could hear the earl making the threats. “Or he’ll have me prosecuted for kidnapping or breach of promise.”
“This says the same,” his father said, dropping the letter onto a side table. “The man’s mad—he cannot prosecute you for both.”
“He might intend to pursue whichever route seems the more likely to succeed,” Nick suggested.
“Do you object to the girl?”
“No.”
Lord Carterton looked at Nick over his spectacles. “That’s not the impression I got last time we discussed your future wife.”
“Things change.” His father’s expectant gaze made him feel uneasy. “Miss Roper is… is not…”
“Is boring?”
