Quinn made a scoffing sound that was part ridicule, part chuckle. He had been lured into his own courtship.
Indeed, it was possible that he could never have escaped his fate. Perhaps Kate was right: Venetia was his ideal match. The kind of perfect fit his sister and his cousins Ash and Jack had found. Admittedly they were content and fulfilled in a way that he never had been.
His parents had known that remarkable contentment. An image flashed in Quinn’s memory, the love and devotion in his parents’ eyes as they gazed at each other, the pure happiness.
He wanted to have that same happiness with Venetia.
He couldn’t force her to love him, certainly. But he wouldn’t let her current resistance stop him. He’d grown up knowing the best kind of marriage, and no other sort would do for him. When this was all over, he intended to claim her as his own, and he would let nothing and no one stand in his way.
—
Even though her heart was not in her work, Venetia returned to her studio. She was already vexed and on edge, and her nerves would be shredded if she had to wait idly all afternoon for Quinn’s safe return from the boxing match.
She would much rather have occupied herself by seeking Cleo’s advice about winning her husband’s love, but she decided against a visit. Not only would the journey to Cleo’s isolated country home in Kensington be too risky with the assassin still at large, her friend would not be happy to hear how drastically her feelings toward her marriage had changed. No doubt Cleo would try to dissuade her from her goal.
It was something of a relief, therefore, when two hours later a message arrived from Ophelia, pleading for help standing up to their mother in the matter of prospective suitors.
At least she could be of some use to her sister, Venetia rationalized. And she had armed guards to protect her. Furthermore, her parents lived much closer than Cleo, in a bustling part of town. Helping Ophelia would keep her from going mad waiting helplessly at home for word from Quinn.
When she arrived at her parents’ home, Ophelia launched into her complaints at once. “Oh, Venetia, thank you for coming! Mama is being completely intractable. I favor one gentleman, but she objects for no good reason and wishes me to embrace an altogether different choice. I pray you will speak to her and convince her she is mistaken.”
Venetia made soothing comments to temper Ophelia’s frustration, and once she understood the particulars, agreed to referee their argument and talk to their mother. But she kept an eye on the mantel clock the entire time, and her unsettled thoughts kept drifting as she wondered how Quinn was faring with his scheme to root out the killer.
It was going to be a very long afternoon.
—
The boxing match had the festive atmosphere of a country fair. Vendors hawked meat pies and gingerbread and ale near a low wooden platform, which had been roped off to form a ring. Large crowds milled around, betting on the outcome between two professional bruisers.
At the start, the contest seemed fairly even, with the hulking combatants bobbing and weaving and landing bare-knuckled jabs to the shouts and whistles of the spectators, then graduating to more powerful blows that would have instantly felled lesser men.
Quinn kept one eye on the match, another on the crowd. Occasionally he spied Hawk, who moved among the throng keeping watch. The local champion won, to the delight of the crowd. At the conclusion, Quinn managed to separate himself from his footmen as planned, and strolled across the grass field without escort, toward his waiting carriage.
He was halfway there when he recognized the brutes following him. The same three thugs who had ambushed him in the alley behind Tavistock’s were now armed with knives and cudgels. Unlike that night, however, Quinn had some advance warning this time. Additionally, Hawk and his men were highly proficient at their assignments.
It was simpler than Quinn expected to subdue the three thugs. Before they could barely blink, they were trussed and gagged and secured in a wagon. Their capture won a few looks from curious bystanders, but no one came to their rescue as they were carted to a nearby tavern and carried down to the cellar.
“Well done,” Quinn told Hawk with genuine admiration.
Hawk returned a faint smile and shook his head. “Save your praise until we learn the name of their employer. Their tongues will likely loosen once they have stewed awhile. Let us go above stairs and enjoy an ale.”
They left the three louts twisting and fighting to break free of their bonds and returned to find them sullenly protesting their treatment with curses.
By calm reasoning Quinn presented their options. The usual punishment for attempted murder of a peer was transportation to the penal colony at New South Wales, or hanging here in England. The alternative was prison, but he might be willing to provide their release once he had apprehended their employer.
His threats were not idle, and eventually they revealed their own names—Croft, Thackery, and Beck, although at first they stubbornly refused to identify who had hired them.
Finally Beck capitulated, evidently having the most concern for his skin. “I ’ave no wish to ’ang. ’Tis a Frenchie you seek.”
“A Frenchman?”
“Aye, a Frog. But we wasn’t ordered to kill you. ’e paid us to waylay you to see if you ’ad a certain ruby and diamond pendant on your person.”
Thackery chimed in. “ ’is name was Firmin. Armand Firmin.”
Hawk spoke up then. “Are you acquainted with Firmin, Traherne?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Quinn had half expected his assailant to be Montreux.
“Who is he?” Hawk asked Thackery.
“Just someone who ’ired us.”
“Where can we find this Firmin?”
“I dinna ken.”
“But you must have communicated with him recently, since you were lying in wait for me this afternoon.”
“Aye,” Croft hastened to offer. “At an inn near the Wapping docks. The Arms, on High Street.”
“Describe him for me—his age and appearance.”
“ ’e was younger than me, black ’air and eyes, tall and thin with a beak nose. And ’e had a cold stare. A killer for sure. Made me skin crawl, ’e did.”
Quinn questioned them further about the other two attempts on his life—when his carriage was run off the road, and when he’d been shot in his own garden by a man disguised in the Traherne livery colors—but they professed to know nothing more.
Hawk drew Quinn aside. “We will pay a visit to The Arms and scout out the surroundings, but it might not be Firmin’s headquarters. Be aware that we may not secure him today.”
Quinn had difficulty quelling his disappointment and frustration, yet they were another step closer to identifying his deadly assailant.
—
Venetia could claim success in championing her sister’s cause, for she managed to soften their mother’s opposition to Ophelia’s favorite suitor. Now she was eager to return home and discover what progress, if any, Quinn had made.
When she descended the front steps of the house and headed down the walk toward the brick entrance gate, however, she didn’t see her carriage waiting at the street curb as expected. Her steps slowed as she reached the gate, for another closed carriage stood in its stead, driven by an unfamiliar coachman.
Venetia halted there, debating what to do. The carriage moved forward, and when it halted adjacent to her, she could see inside the lowered window. A smiling Compte de Montreux looked back at her.
Her heart started pounding reflexively, while her thoughts dashed ahead. Perhaps the compte was the Paris gamester after all—
“May I offer you a ride, Lady Traherne?”
“Thank you, no. I have my own carriage.”
“Au contraire. My men have disabled your guards and hidden your carriage.” Montreux drew a pistol and aimed it directly at her. “You will please join me.”
For an instant, Venetia stood frozen, her heart racing. Her voice sounded faint when she finally manage
d to respond. “Or what? You will shoot me?”
“If I must, although I would regret acting so precipitously. It is not my intention to harm you just yet.”
“But you mean to abduct me?”
“I fear so. Armand, assist her ladyship.”
A tall, dark-haired man appeared around the far side of the coach, striding toward her.
One part of Venetia could not believe this was really happening. Montreux sat there, bold as you please, brazenly planning to take her captive in broad daylight.
But she would not go willingly.
Spinning, she ran back inside the gate, toward the house, while footsteps pounded after her in hot pursuit. She was shocked and furious and terrified all at once, but knew she had only a few seconds to provide a clue about her abductors.
Urgently, she dug in her reticule and pulled out a piece of chalk as she sank to her knees. On a paved flagstone, she drew a rough depiction of a frog and a large M—
Before she could write more, Montreux’s henchman seized her by the arm and hauled her to her feet.
Venetia gave a shout toward the house, hoping to be heard by her sister or one of the Stratham servants, but fighting Armand was futile, as she was dragged painfully toward the carriage. He was tall and wiry and unbelievably strong.
Hitting him with her reticule had no effect. Desperate to provide another clue to help with a possible rescue, she tore the strings from her wrist and let the cloth purse drop to the pavestones.
At her continued resistance, Armand’s arm snaked about her waist, lifting her up. Propelling her the last yard, he forced her inside and slammed the door behind her. She landed on the floor on her hands and knees.
Her pulse pounding from exertion and fear, Venetia struggled to climb onto the seat just as the carriage lunged forward. It was a moment before she gained her balance enough to face her abductor.
Montreux sat across from her, no longer smiling.
Venetia gripped her hands together to keep them from shaking. She could only hope Quinn would come to find her—except that an attempted rescue was doubtless exactly what the compte wanted. Suddenly, her own peril was no longer her greatest worry.
Ice filled her veins at the dire threat to Quinn. “You were the one who tried to kill my husband,” she accused, “and this is your latest endeavor.”
His eyes glittering, Montreux nodded with relish. “Alas, my initial efforts failed, but I will not fail again. Having you under my control will lure Traherne to me.”
“But why do you want him dead?”
“I have my reasons.”
A shudder went through her. His tone, like his expression, was cold, remote, implacable. There would be no reasoning with a man like this, she knew instinctively.
Fear gripped her throat and seeped into her bones—
No, stop that! She could not let herself become paralyzed.
Forcibly, Venetia swallowed and tried to summon her courage. Montreux wouldn’t succeed in harming Quinn, she vowed. Not if she could help it.
But just at the moment, she couldn’t begin to think of any way to stop him.
—
As predicted, the effort to locate Armand Firmin at The Arms in Wapping was unsuccessful. None of the employees could remember serving a Frenchman of his description.
By the time Quinn returned home, it was past five o’clock. Upon entering, Wilkins greeted him with a grave expression.
“My lord, Lady Traherne’s sister, Miss Ophelia Stratham, is awaiting you in the drawing room. She says it is a matter of great urgency.”
Before Quinn could hand over his hat and cane, a white-faced Ophelia appeared in the corridor. Evidently she had been listening for his arrival.
“What is amiss?” he asked.
“It is V-Venetia,” the girl stammered. “She has been taken.”
Quinn felt his heart clench. “What do you mean, taken?”
Ophelia launched into a hurried recitation. “She was leaving our home when a man in a dark cloak forced her into a coach—a footman heard her cry out and opened the front door just in time to see the scuffle—and she left her reticule on the walk, along with a chalk drawing—please, my lord, you must save her—”
By now Ophelia was half sobbing as her words tumbled out.
Quinn grasped her shoulders and demanded she take a deep breath and speak more slowly. With effort he refrained from barking out questions as Ophelia described the sketch of what looked to be a frog and the initial “M.”
“For Montreux,” he muttered, struggling to quell his own panic. “It has to be.”
“I am so afraid for her,” Ophelia wailed.
“Don’t worry, we will find her,” he promised, keeping his own fear to himself. Fury burned hot and bright inside him, as did terror. He could imagine Venetia shot and bleeding, in great pain. The image turned his blood to ice—and yet at the same time, an unnatural calm settled over him. He would find her and rescue her or die trying.
He ordered Wilkins to summon Hawk to the Stratham home on Henrietta Place, while he accompanied Ophelia there. He wanted to see for himself the sketch Venetia had drawn.
There was still enough daylight to make out the chalk drawing, which convinced Quinn that he was right to suspect Montreux.
The knowledge bolstered his resolve. Remarkably, Venetia had had the presence of mind to leave clues, and he needed to make use of them. She was clever and resourceful, and he had to believe she would continue fighting.
He set his coachmen searching for Venetia’s missing guards and carriage, then entered the Stratham house with Ophelia. Inside, the entire household was in chaos, and oddly, Mrs. Stratham seemed even more shaken by Venetia’s abduction than her younger daughter.
Hawk arrived some twenty minutes later and listened intently as Quinn shared what he knew.
“If Montreux means to hold her for ransom,” Hawk mused, “he will contact you at home—”
“I am not waiting helplessly at home,” Quinn insisted.
“I don’t mean for you to. It would be far better if we could determine his whereabouts and take the battle to him. No doubt his price will be your head, and he will be lying in wait for you. But the element of surprise can provide us a significant advantage. Where might he have taken her?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion.”
“It would be some place he knows well and can defend while holding a hostage.”
A jolt of recognition ran through Quinn. “I know of one possibility—a country house where he lived while he was in exile, on the outskirts of London, on the road to Kent. New Cross was the village, I believe.”
Hawk nodded. “Traveling there now will be a gamble, but that seems a good place to begin our search. If that location proves fruitless, we will rethink our options. We’ll set out as soon as I can arrange for reinforcements.”
“Ash is in Kent, but I want Jack with me. We will need all the firepower we can muster.”
Quinn sent a Stratham footman after his cousin, asking Jack to meet them at Hawk’s London home. Just then his coachman returned to report that Venetia’s abandoned carriage had been found in a nearby copse of woods, her driver and two guards trussed inside and barely conscious. Quinn took a valuable few minutes to question them, but learned little about their attackers. With renewed urgency, Quinn went home with Hawk to gather weapons and ammunition and round up the earl’s available men.
On the carriage ride there, Quinn flayed himself for missing the signs. “I should have suspected Montreux sooner. I feel like a blind, bloody fool. It now seems probable he was behind the attempts on my life all along. But I can’t fathom why, unless it was revenge for my father’s actions many years ago, for stealing away Montreux’s bride-to-be, my mother. But why now?”
“With luck, you will have the chance to ask him yourself when we rescue your wife tonight.”
Quinn could only pray Hawk was right.
Fear of losing Venetia ripped through him anew, and he found it ha
rd to sustain his former grim determination. Particularly when he was aware of a bitter irony:
If he’d harbored any doubt about his love for Venetia, his visceral response to her abduction would have settled the question. Why only now, when it might be too late, had he come to realize how precious she was to him?
“Where are you taking me?” Venetia asked as the compte’s coach rumbled over Westminster Bridge.
“You will learn soon enough.”
After crossing the Thames River and traveling another mile or so, she realized their environs were becoming less inhabited. Venetia shivered, unable to control the chills snaking down her spine. Even though she had left clues as to her captor, they were heading beyond the city, where no one would know how to find her.
Yet she couldn’t just sit here cowering. Instead, she needed to persuade Montreux to disclose any information she might use to her benefit.
She began by appealing to his vanity, giving him a compliment. “I must commend you on your cleverness, monsieur. You managed to abduct me with very little effort.”
Her opening gambit was met by dispiriting silence.
“I played directly into your hands, didn’t I? By leaving my home to visit my sister¸ I made your task much easier.”
The compte’s faint smile made her skin crawl. “You obliged me, yes. Otherwise I would have needed to seize you from your house, and leading you out at gunpoint would have been quite difficult.”
“You must have known Traherne was away.”
“Certainly I did. I pride myself with my acumen. You were the more vulnerable target.” Montreux made a scoffing sound. “Did he think I wouldn’t deduce his ploy to draw me out? It was much too obvious. I sent my hirelings to divert Traherne while I put my plan in motion. And soon enough I will—what is the English phrase?—turn the tables upon him.”
Fresh fear swamped Venetia at the reminder that he planned to lure Quinn to his death.
Before she could reply, Montreux cut her off. “Now hold your tongue, madame. I have no desire to listen to your babble.”
The Art of Taming a Rake (Legendary Lovers #4) Page 25
