For the Sake of a Scottish Rake

by Anna Bradley

  Have the whole lot?

  He meant her fortune, of course. Uncle Jarvis would hardly exert himself to a kidnapping for anything less than the entire sixty thousand pounds.

  Lucy waited in silence. Her uncle was in a chatty mood, so she’d let him talk.

  “It is gratifying when things work out, isn’t it, Lucinda? I confess I wasn’t sure they would until I saw you emerge from the Swan and Anchor this morning. It all fell into place after that.”

  Lucy remembered his arm pressing into her throat, and then…nothing. Not for a while. By the time she came back to herself, they’d left London behind.

  “Laudanum’s a fine thing, isn’t it? I never thought I’d see the day when your aunt would prove useful, but here we are.”

  Lucy ran her tongue over her dry lips. He’d forced her to drink from a brown bottle several times over the past few hours. She’d obligingly feigned a collapse each time, but thanks to Dr. Digby’s Calming Tonic, she’d remained awake and alert for most of the drive. She shuddered, thinking how much worse off she’d be now if he’d really given her laudanum.

  Unfortunately, consciousness hadn’t done her much good. She hadn’t gleaned any information aside from a general impression they were moving south. “Where are we?” Lucy’s voice was so hoarse she hardly recognized it as her own.

  She didn’t expect him to tell her, but to her surprise, he answered readily. “In Kent, near Maidstone. Nice county, Kent. Lovely countryside. I think you’ll like it here, Lucinda.”

  A rough laugh scraped over Lucy’s abused throat. “I don’t intend to stay, Uncle.”

  “But you won’t have a choice, my dear. I’m afraid Dr. Willis will insist on it. I’ve been writing to him for weeks now, since I learned of your troubling behavior in Brighton. He’s heard your entire sad history.”

  His smile made the hair on Lucy’s neck rise.

  “Madness so often runs in families, doesn’t it?” Uncle Jarvis went on in a low, satisfied purr. “Such a pity the daughter should suffer from her father’s illness, but hardly a surprise, really.”

  Madness…

  Lucy went still, her blood turning to ice in her veins. She could only stare at him, frozen with horror. He was taking her to a madhouse, leaving her there so he could retain control over her fortune. Lucy’s throat worked, but she was so shocked at his perfidy she couldn’t produce a sound.

  From the first moment she’d met her Uncle Jarvis she’d known he wasn’t a good man, but this…this was far, far beyond any line she’d ever imagined he’d cross. To lock her away, knowing full well she was perfectly sane—dear God, she could hardly credit such treachery.

  “There’s a flaw in your plan, uncle.” It was an effort to keep her voice steady and meet her uncle’s eyes, but Lucy managed it. “Rather a fatal flaw, I’m afraid.”

  He shifted his weight, settling himself more comfortably against the squabs. He looked as if he were enjoying himself. “Is there, indeed? What’s that?”

  “I’m not mad.”

  He waved a desultory hand. “That’s neither here nor there.”

  “I’m afraid it is. You need two doctors to testify I suffer from madness before you can have me committed.” Lucy had made it her business to discover all there was to know about madhouses and commitment, given her father’s situation.

  If Uncle Jarvis had relied on her ignorance, he’d made a mistake.

  But any hope Lucy might have had vanished when she saw the smirk on his face. “No need to fear, my dear. Dr. Willis is prepared to declare your wits well addled, and I’ve no doubt his colleagues will follow suit. In his last letter he expressed himself very concerned about your sanity, and urged me to bring you to him as soon as the thing could be managed.”

  Lucy didn’t move or answer. She kept still, waiting, but desperation was clawing at her, its talons growing sharper with every word out of her uncle’s mouth.

  He leaned across the carriage and fixed his cold blue eyes on her face. “He could hardly think otherwise, could he? You see, Lucinda, I felt it my duty to explain your recent erratic behavior to him, in some detail.”

  “I don’t…” Lucy swallowed. “What e-erratic behavior?”

  He shrugged, but those hard eyes were gleaming with satisfaction. “That business in Brighton, sneaking onto the beach every morning at dawn. The fainting fits at balls—half of London witnessed those. Your unreasonable aversion to Lord Godfrey.”

  Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth. Every pitch and lurch of the wheels over the rough roads made her stomach twist with nausea.

  Uncle Jarvis sighed as if he were disappointed in her. “Really, my dear, this is all your own fault. You must see that. Naturally I predicted you’d balk at a match with Godfrey—indeed, that was why I chose him—but I confess it never occurred to me you’d react so violently, or publicly. But as I said, you’ve made it all quite easy for me.”

  The thick press of bile burned Lucy’s throat as Uncle Jarvis revealed the depths to which he’d sunk to steal her fortune.

  He’d never intended to marry her to Lord Godfrey at all. It had been a ploy to push her to extreme behavior—expose her to the notice and censure of the ton, so he’d be justified in declaring her insane. He’d planned to lock her up in a madhouse from the very start, and she…

  She’d foolishly played right into his hands.

  Uncle Jarvis gave a mournful shake of his head. “I explained to Dr. Willis the care I took to find you an advantageous match, only to be faced with your flagrant disobedience. Really, Lucinda. What sane young lady balks at becoming a countess?”

  Panic rushed through Lucy, making her dizzy. “Plenty of sane young ladies would balk at becoming Lord Godfrey’s countess!”

  Uncle Jarvis went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “But what really alarmed me, as I explained to Dr. Willis, is your unnatural fixation on Mr. Ramsey. I told him I was afraid it would lead you to do something rash, and you see, I was right. To leave your uncle’s kind protection and throw yourself on the mercy of a rake like Ramsey!” Another shake of the head. “Wantonness in a female is a sure sign of madness.”

  Lucy collapsed against the seat, her chest tightening at mention of Ciaran’s name. What must he have thought when he returned to the inn and found her gone? Would he suspect her uncle had snatched her away, or would he think she’d left on her own? What if she were locked away forever, and never saw him again? He’d think she’d left him, abandoned him.

  Despair washed over Lucy, but she faced her uncle with her chin raised. “He’ll come after me. He’ll find out what you’ve done, and he’ll follow us.”

  “Oh, I hope not. He has a bit of a temper, that one. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it. That’s why I took care no one should know anything about my plans. Not your aunt, and not Eloisa. Certainly not Mr. Ramsey. They’ll be distressed when they find you gone, of course, but they won’t have the first idea where to look for you.”

  She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were folding, collapsing. The darkness of the carriage pressed in on her, and her fists opened and closed helplessly. She darted a glance at the carriage door. If she could get it open before Uncle Jarvis knew what she was about, she could—

  “That’s not a wise choice, Lucinda.” Uncle Jarvis clamped a hand down on her arm with a mirthless laugh. “Even if you land in one piece, where do you suppose you’d go? Now, be a good girl and stay where you are. We’re here.”

  Lucy hadn’t noticed the carriage had slowed. She pressed her face to the glass as the coachman made a turn, and her heart rushed into her throat. They were driving up a long, tree-lined road, at the end of which loomed a massive, gray stone building. A trio of arches graced the ground floor entryway, atop which stood a columned portico. Two giant wings were attached to the main building, with endless rows of windows looking onto the drive below.

  Lucy shra
nk into a corner of the carriage, as far away from that forbidding place as she could get, but it did her no good. As soon as they stopped her uncle seized her arm and pulled her out of the carriage and onto the drive.

  “Now, my dear niece. You can come along quietly, or I can have Bexley here take your other arm, and we’ll drag you inside.” Uncle Jarvis nodded at the coachman, who stared down at Lucy, his face utterly expressionless.

  Lucy was painfully aware it would only make her look more of a lunatic if she forced them to drag her. She opened her mouth to say she’d go quietly when her gaze fell on the brown bottle lying on its side on Uncle Jarvis’s seat. Desperation cleared the haze in her mind, and in its wake rose an idea, sharp and blindingly clear.

  If she kicked up a fuss, they might decide to dose her again to keep her quiet. Once they did…well, even madwomen succumbed to laudanum, didn’t they? All she need do then was stage a strategic collapse, and they wouldn’t expect much more trouble from her. After all, how much havoc could one unconscious madwoman raise?

  Except it wasn’t laudanum, and she wouldn’t be unconscious. On the contrary, she was beginning to feel quite alert, indeed.

  Her mind made up, Lucy launched into a fit that would have put the maddest Bedlamite to shame. There was a great deal of screaming, kicking, and squirming on her part, and scrambling and cursing on Bexley’s and Uncle Jarvis’s. Bexley leapt from the box into the carriage, fetched the brown bottle, and held her down while her uncle forced her to swallow such a deep draught Lucy suspected it might have killed her had it truly been laudanum.

  She didn’t waste any time afterward, but fell into a such a determined swoon her uncle was forced to carry her up the stairs to the entrance of Oakwood Asylum.

  Through a narrow slit in her eyelids Lucy saw a gentleman waiting for them there. Dr. Willis—or so she assumed him to be—cast her a pitying look, and instructed several large, raw-knuckled nurses to take her to an upstairs chamber while he consulted with her uncle.

  Quicker than a breath, Lucy was half-dragged, half-carried up three flights of stairs and deposited on a bed in the corner of a chilly, sparsely furnished room. The nurses didn’t linger, but left her there alone. She flinched at the metallic click of the lock, but as soon as their footsteps faded she scrambled up from the bed and darted toward the window.

  The locked door didn’t trouble her. She could free herself easily enough with one of the dozens of hairpins in her hair.

  The vast emptiness outside the window was another matter.

  She could see a good distance from her vantage point, but not a light glimmered in the pressing darkness. The good people of Kent must prefer to keep those afflicted with madness at a distance, because the Oakwood Asylum was as remote a place as Lucy had ever encountered. She’d been groggy still when they passed through Maidstone, but she calculated it must be five or more miles away.

  She could pick the lock on the bedchamber door, sneak down the corridors, and gain the entryway, but once she escaped into the night, where could she go? She wasn’t such a fool as to think her uncle would take her sudden absence lightly. She wouldn’t get far before he came after her and dragged her back here, and it would prove far more difficult to escape a second time.

  No, if she were going to flee, she had to make certain she’d get away.

  And get away she would, no matter what it took. Lucy bit her lip, the last of her panic dissipating as she considered and then discarded various escape scenarios.

  There was a thick line of trees on either side of the drive. They’d hide her well enough until she was out of sight of the asylum, but which direction should she take when she reached the end of the drive? If she did manage to make it to Maidstone, what then? She hadn’t a single shilling in her pockets, or even a cloak to—

  What in the world?

  A gasp broke from Lucy’s lips. She pressed her face to the glass, her heart pounding. She could have sworn she saw something—a flash of movement on one side of the drive, close to the tree edge. She stared, her breath catching hard in her chest as she waited, hoping against hope.…

  Please let it be him. Please.

  She strained to see into the darkness, her eyes watering with the effort. She sucked in one ragged breath after the next as her gaze darted over the drive below, waiting, waiting—

  There! Further up the drive now, but still clinging to the shadows, another flash of movement, the flick of a man’s hands on a horse’s reins.

  Lucy gasped again, her fingers clawing at the cold glass as he moved closer, weaving cautiously through the trees.

  It was him.

  She couldn’t see his face—couldn’t even make out the color of his horse—but Lucy knew it was him. She knew, because who else would have come for her but the same man who always did? The man who’d been there time and time again, arms wide open and ready for her, even when she thought she didn’t need him?

  She did need him. She’d teased him about his gallantry and poked fun at his heroics, but there’d never been a single moment when Lucy hadn’t needed him. He was her best friend. Her lover. The man she’d gifted with her heart, the man she treasured above all others. He was the hero she’d never thought she’d find, the hero she never thought she’d need.

  Now he was here, about to embark on another rescue. His most dramatic one yet.

  But he couldn’t do it alone.

  Lucy assessed her options, her brain churning out one idea after another as Ciaran drew closer and closer to the building. He paused before clearing the tree line to dismount and tie his horse, then she saw him creep closer on foot, his face turned up toward the massive stone building looming over him.

  She was too far above to make out his expression, but she could see the tautness in his body, sense the fury pouring through him, the grim resolve, and she knew what he was going to do even before he took another step.

  He was coming in after her.

  She knew Ciaran as well as she knew herself. Once he was inside, he wouldn’t leave until he had her. He’d made up his mind she’d be with him when he went back out that door, no matter what he had to do.

  Lucy couldn’t prevent the foolish little leap of her heart just then. To have such a man as this risk everything to save her was heady. But even as her heart throbbed, she knew she couldn’t allow him to do it.

  There was another way, a much better one.

  She’d go to him.

  Unfortunately, this required getting his attention and stopping him before he stormed the gates, as it were. How she’d manage it without making any noise that would attract attention, well…that was the difficult part.

  She peered down into the drive, her heart sinking. It felt as if she were miles above him, with an eternity of empty space between them. Too far to shout or pound on the window without every madhouse nurse in the place flooding into her bedchamber.

  How could she catch Ciaran’s attention without alerting anyone else? No one expected any trouble from her. They believed her to be in a laudanum-induced stupor, and she had a far better chance at escape if she kept it that way.

  Lucy never made a conscious decision about what to do. She saw Ciaran creeping across the drive, inching closer and closer to the front entrance, and the next thing she knew she was tugging at the window, amazement sweeping over her when it slid open under her clawing fingers. Not locked? It seemed incredible it wouldn’t be, but then even a lunatic would think twice before throwing herself from such a height.

  Herself, yes, but any number of other things might be thrown from a window, mightn’t they? A book? Lucy glanced around the room. No, no books. Not the lamp, either. It would make an awful noise when it shattered. Oh, if only she had her cloak still—

  Lucy froze as the answer slammed into her. No cloak, but she did have her shoes. She dropped onto the floor, tore a shoe off her foot, then braced herself on the sill
and poked her head out. She closed one eye, took aim, and…

  Hurled her shoe out the window.

  It seemed to hover in mid-air, as if making up its mind whether to challenge gravity or succumb to it, but then it was falling, falling, and…yes! It hit the ground with a thud, right at Ciaran’s feet.

  He halted mid-step, his head jerking upward.

  Lucy knew the exact moment when he saw her. The shock, anger, and panic melted from his face at once, and his lips curved in a slow smile…

  Oh, such a smile!

  Her heart threatened to melt inside her chest, but this wasn’t the moment to fall into a besotted swoon. Instead she pressed a finger to her lips and held up her hand to signal he should remain silent and motionless.

  He didn’t move, and he didn’t make a sound. He stood below her, his face turned up to hers, waiting.

  She pointed toward the side of the drive from where he’d come, then made a shooing gesture to indicate he should return to his horse and wait for her. His shoulders stiffened, and he gave a sharp shake of his head.

  “Yes,” Lucy whispered. She laced her fingers together under her chin.

  Please.

  He hesitated, frowning, but after a moment he did as she bid him and vanished back into the shadows.

  Lucy snatched a hairpin from her hair, rushed to the door and knelt before it. There was no time to lose. If she didn’t appear on the drive in the next few minutes, she hadn’t the slightest doubt Ciaran would come after her.

  Fortunately, she’d picked so many locks she didn’t need much time.

  Escaping the asylum undetected proved a great deal more difficult than escaping the bedchamber. Three flights of stairs had never seemed so many before, but between diving into alcoves and around doors—and, at one point—into an unlocked room with a sleeping occupant—Lucy made it to the first-floor landing.