“Go on then,” Edward nodded and turned away to get his horse.
“Go on then, what?”
Dominic rolled his eyes. He buried his guffaws in the thick woollen scarf around his neck. He waited with Edward to see what Sebastian would do.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Sebastian snapped and stared down at the unconscious man at his feet. He rubbed a weary hand down his face and wondered why he had ever agreed to this stupidity in the first place. “Are either of you going to lend a hand?” He tried to ignore the gap in the man’s breeches. “If you think for one second that I am going to be caught in the yard of an inn with my hand anywhere near another man’s breeches then you both have another think coming.”
“You hit him on the head before he had put it away, now you deal with it.”
Sebastian growled low in his throat. He knew that neither of them would lend a hand. The mutinous way Edward had crossed his arms warned him that his brother wouldn’t budge, and the wry amusement on Dominic’s face told him that there would be no help in that quarter either.
With a sigh he cast a dark look at the inn door and quickly tucked the man’s business away before hefting him into a sitting position.
“Jesus, you have got to give me a hand.” Sebastian gasped and threw Edward a dark look. “For God’s sake get down here.” Sebastian was as no lightweight. He was taller than average with a solid build, broad shoulders and strong muscles, but even he was no match for the heavy frame of the unconscious man.
Dominic shook his head and moved to help Sebastian lift Harper onto the back of the cart. As soon as the unconscious man was covered with a blanket, both Dominic and Sebastian took a moment to catch their breaths.
“Come on, let’s go,” Dominic murmured quietly when they had turned out onto the main road. He didn’t need to look around to know that Sebastian and Edward were right behind him. They all knew that Harper had not been hit hard enough to be unconscious for long. At some point throughout the next few hours they were going to have a very angry, very ruthless man on their hands, and it was safer for all of them if he was out of the city when he realised what they had done to him.
Harper awoke with a start. The heavy pounding in his head immediately made him feel nauseous and he took a breath to quell the bile that rose in his throat. He was so very hot and struggled not to squirm against the suffocating warmth. A dark frown settled over his brow as he realised that there was something heavy over his face. He immediately began to claw at it and gasped a deep lungful of crisp, clean air when he was finally free of the woollen weight. He scowled when he saw the clouds in the brilliant blue sky high above. What the hell was going on?
The only sound he could hear was the steady clip-clop of hooves accompanied by the low rumble of the carriage wheels as they rolled over the cart track. He lay perfectly still for a moment and watched the sky roll past.
He wondered if his predicament had anything to do with the French spies the Star Elite had been working on, but then immediately dismissed the notion as ridiculous. The spies, and their associates, were all either behind bars or dead.
One hand immediately patted his hip and he closed his eyes on a curse when he realised that his gun had been taken from him. He turned his head to study the cart and his surroundings and couldn’t prevent the low moan that escaped him when he felt a large sore spot on the back of his head. Bile immediately rose in his throat again and, for one moment, he thought he was going to be sick but he manfully swallowed and gritted his teeth. He didn’t have time for any of that; not right now. There was far too much at stake.
“Jesus,” he whispered and was about to sit up when movement to his left drew his attention. He studied the outrider who trotted along beside him, but was fairly certain that he had never seen the man before. From the look of the rider’s expensive clothing, he was someone who had wealth and status and was confident with his place in the world. The wicked looking, highly polished pistol on the man’s hip warned Harper that the outrider was also a man on a mission of some kind. He carefully turned his head to the opposite side and studied another outrider who looked very similar to his counterpart. Were they related in some way? If so, what the hell did they want with him? Whatever they wanted, one thing was for certain; he wasn’t going to get any answers lying on his back pretending to be dead.
Harper snarled at the effort it took just for him to sit up. He ignored the swirling of the world around him and glared balefully at the man who rode to his left as he touched the wet, sticky patch on the back of his head.
“You are awake.” The outrider called to the man who was driving the cart and it mercifully rumbled to a stop.
The narrow country lane they were in could have been anywhere. Harper wondered just how long he had been unconscious because there wasn’t a soul to be seen for miles around. There wasn’t even a church spire in the distance to indicate that there was a town within walking distance. Right now, he was well and truly stuck.
“Where the hell am I? Who the hell are you lot?” He glared at each man in turn and made a mental note of the fact that none of them made any attempt to dismount from their horses. They were waiting for him to run.
“I am Edward Cavendish,” the outrider to the left of him replied. He nodded to the man who remained seated on the bench at the front of the cart. “Your driver is Dominic Cavendish, and the man on the other side is Sebastian Cavendish.”
“The Cavendish brothers,” Harper grumbled in disgust. “I have heard of you. You are friends with Sir Hugo, my boss.”
“That’s right. We have a long acquaintance with him.”
“Has he arranged this?”
Dominic sighed and turned to straddle the hard bench that had already turned his bottom numb. “No, I have arranged this,” he declared flatly. “Well, we all have.” He nodded toward Edward and Sebastian.
“Well, I bloody well suggest that you take me back to London, because the last time I checked kidnapping is still illegal in this country.”
“We want to talk to you and, well, you do have a reputation for being more than a little uncommunicative,” Sebastian drawled with a sigh.
“I talk just like everyone else,” Harper replied defensively.
“We had considered writing to you to ask you to meet with us but you don’t reply to your correspondence, do you?” Edward countered.
“Why the hell should I? I don’t know you and I have better things to do than run around after anyone,” Harper snorted.
He was fairly sure that these men were the kind who would send a note and expect someone to turn up at the time they decreed, on time and at the location they demanded. Although they were talking to him in a friendly enough manner, their confidence in the situation was emphasised by the calm, almost casual air in which they sat talking to him. For some reason, he had the strangest feeling that they had done this kind of thing before and were confident in that there would be no repercussions that they couldn’t handle in some way or another.
Although he didn’t know the Cavendish brothers personally, he had heard Sir Hugo mention them on more than one occasion. They were renowned within the War Office for being war heroes with a sterling reputation for fairness and decency. Harper snorted and wondered what the hell went wrong because, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing fair or decent about knocking someone out as they were going about their own business, and kidnapping them.
“What the hell do you want with me?” He threw each man a dark look and watched them exchange wary glances.
“We have something to tell you and we need you to listen before you form judgement or make any kind of denial,” Edward replied and studied the rolling hills that surrounded them for a moment while he considered where to suggest they go.
“We have another day to ride to get to the family’s ancestral home in Leicestershire,” Sebastian announced.
“I am not going to Leicestershire,” Harper snapped angrily. He didn’t bother to wait for them to say anything
else. Instead, he moved awkwardly to his feet and jumped down from the cart. When nobody made any attempt to stop him, he began to walk down the lane in the opposite direction to where they were headed. He had barely gone a few feet when Sebastian thundered past and turned his horse sideways in the lane, effectively blocking the road. With no gun, Harper could hardly kick the horse out of the way and had little choice but to stand still.
He put his hands on his hips and turned to face the men who waited patiently behind him. “I could have you arrested for kidnap; you know that, don’t you?”
“We do, but I think that you will want to reconsider when we tell you something about you that you don’t know.” Edward frowned and thought his statement over carefully.
“What?”
“Get in,” Dominic ordered. “There is a tavern further down the road. It isn’t much but it is warm, dry and I don’t know about you but I need a brandy and a pie. I am starving and fed up of these two.” He nodded to his brothers. “Let’s eat and then we may as well tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Harper thundered.
“Get in,” all three men chorused at once.
Harper rolled his eyes and shook his head but clambered onto the back of the wagon with a sigh of relief. Now that he was off his feet, he would rather have his teeth pulled out than admit that it was nice to be out of the city where it was peaceful and the air was crisp and clear. The sun bathed them in a warm glow, the birds chirped merrily in the trees and hedgerow as they passed and it soothed his bad temper to the point that he felt faintly normal, and strangely regretful, when they pulled into the neatly tended yard of a small country tavern minutes later.
Still, he wasn’t about to be appeased too easily. He jumped down from the cart before it drew to a stop and stomped inside without a backward look. Luckily, he had some money in his pocket still and wasted no time in heading to the bar. He ignored the horrified gasp that came from the bird-like barmaid, and watched her take several steps away from him with cool disinterest.
“What are you staring at?” He growled with a fierce scowl. The last thing he wanted or needed right now was to have to deal with the delicate sensibilities of females. He needed ale. Rather than wait for the woman to reply, he turned to the inn keeper and dropped a couple of coins on the bar. “An ale, if you please?” he asked firmly and waited patiently while the slightly wary inn keeper hurried to serve him.
“You are scaring the locals,” Edward announced dryly as he glanced around the tap room at the assorted regulars who all looked terrified.
“I don’t care,” Harper grumbled and placed his tankard far too carefully back onto the bar. He nodded to the inn keeper to draw him another one but made no attempt to offer his kidnappers a brew. They had bloody well brought him here, they were lucky that they weren’t out cold in the inn yard. He itched to land each one of them a solid punch in payment for his sore head, but he needed food more. His stomach rumbled loudly in full agreement but he ignored it. Instead he listened with only half an ear while the eldest Cavendish, Dominic, arranged for a private room and as much food as the inn keeper could provide.
“Come on, let’s go and get something to eat.”
Harper sighed and briefly contemplated telling him where to put it, but his stomach rumbled again. He followed Edward and the inn keeper across the tap room toward the private parlour and, once inside, sat at the table and watched Dominic pour the wine. Nobody spoke while they tucked into the vast array of food on offer, but it was a thoughtful silence rather than an uncomfortable one.
Harper popped the last of his pie into his mouth, sighed and sat back in his chair to savour his wine and wait for the others to finish. He felt only marginally more malleable now that his thirst was quenched and his stomach full, but he had to admit that his curiosity was piqued. When Dominic put his fork back onto his place, Harper leaned forward in his seat, braced both elbows on the table and looked at each man in turn.
“I think that you had better tell me what you want with me and be quick about it. I have family that I want to go and see before I go back to London,” Harper declared flatly. He glanced around the room with a frown. “Where the hell are we?”
“Shepperton Newton,” Dominic sighed. “It is about fifty miles south of Leicestershire.”
Harper mentally calculated the distance to Yorkshire. Now that he was half-way there, or nearly half-way there, he may as well complete the journey and pay a long awaited visit to see his family. He carefully tucked that thought aside and watched the men seated around the table study each other as though they were deciding which one of them would speak.
Tension hovered over everyone. It appeared so suddenly that Harper’s gut instinct warned him that he wouldn’t like what they were going to say. He sat perfectly still and waited.
“What do you know about your family?”
“They are my business,” Harper replied defensively. He had no intention of discussing the personal details of his family with these strangers no matter who the hell they had as friends.
“I take it that you are from Yorkshire?”
“Yes, Hambley Wood near Skipton, why?”
“Are your brothers still there?”
“Look, what is this? I don’t know you and, as far as I know, you have no business enquiring about my family. You had better get to the point before I leave.” The hardness in his voice warned them all that if they didn’t cut to the heart of the matter, he was going to stalk out of the door and there would be one hell of a fight if they tried to make him stay.
Edward sighed and knew that Harper wasn’t a man of patience right now. “We learned recently that you are our half-brother.”
Harper studied Edward hard. While his face remained impassive, his mind worked overtime in an attempt to absorb Edward’s announcement.
“My parents were from Yorkshire. Born and bred there as a matter of fact. Although they are no longer with us, I was born in Yorkshire and had lived there all of my life, with my brothers, until I joined the army. You have a case of mistaken identity.”
“I am afraid that we don’t,” Sebastian replied steadily. The calm certainty in his voice made Harper glare at him but Sebastian refused to budge. “We have already checked it out. Although we haven’t checked the parish records for visible proof of your birth, we have spoken to the man who is your father and he is still very much alive.”
Harper snorted disparagingly but inside was trying desperately to ignore the sense of unease that had started to settle deep in his gut. The calm authority on their faces warned him that they firmly believed what they told him, but he refused to accept it. It was stuff and nonsense. A case of mistaken identity, that’s what it was.
“My father was called Bartholomew Lawton and he was an ex-soldier. His wife, Agnes, was my mother. I should know. She gave birth to me.”
In spite of his words, a small tendril of doubt began to grow, but he refused to even acknowledge the small voice that warned him that he needed to ask himself why he was taller than his parents, and of a stature more akin to the men he was seated with than his brothers back in Yorkshire. Although Robert, Angus and Joseph were also tall, they didn’t have the powerful shoulders, or dark hair that Harper and the Cavendish brothers had. His brothers in Yorkshire also had brown eyes whereas Harper’s were green, just like Dominic, Sebastian and Edward’s.
“Your mother was our mother. Her name was Alice,” Sebastian added quietly. “Your father is a solicitor from London who used to work for our family. His name is Harry Johnson from Johnson and Johnson solicitors. You can go and ask him if you don’t believe us.”
Harper studied each man in turn. For once in his life he didn’t know what to say or, more importantly, what to do. He had travelled the world during his time in the army but a part of him had always felt as though he was still connected in some intrinsic way to Yorkshire. It was the place of his birth. The place he had been raised by the people he knew and recognised as his parents. He had brothers th
ere for heaven’s sake. Now these people had kidnapped him, and expected him to believe that his entire life was based on a lie; that his parents weren’t his parents. He shook his head and stared at Dominic.
The only outward sign of his disquiet was the steady ticking of a muscle in his jaw. Silence descended in the room as the brothers waited to see what Harper would do.
“You have a case of mistaken identity gentlemen.”
“I am afraid that we don’t, Harper,” Dominic argued and lifted a hand when Harper took a breath to argue. “You see, the man who provided for you financially was your real father, Harry Johnson. The man who took you into his family was his good friend, Bartholomew Lawton.”
“What proof do you have to support all of this? Where are your letters? Women always keep letters detailing what they have done, where are they?”
“I am afraid that we don’t have them,” Edward sighed. “We have searched high and low and found nothing that mentions you.”
“Our aunt, our mother’s sister, Mildred, told us about your existence.”
“Where is your aunt now?” Harper demanded. He wanted to speak to the woman himself and demand that a few of his own questions were answered.
“She died a couple of months ago.”
Harper cursed fluidly. “So all you have are the ramblings of someone who is now deceased, confirmed by a man who must be, what, in his sixties or seventies by now? You have no documents supporting your claims, and nothing other than supposition that my family background has all been a lie?” He swore and shoved away from the table.
“Look, we have nothing to gain by doing this, let me tell you. However, you have to understand that you are a Cavendish, whether you like it or not,” Sebastian argued.
“I am nothing of the kind. It is a case of mistaken identity I tell you,” Harper snapped, determined to thwart whatever it was they wanted. “I don’t know what the hell you lot are up to but I am just not interested. This bloody stupidity has to end.”
Lord Cavendish Returns Page 3
