by Amanda Scott
It occurred to her for the first time then that she had not once spared a thought for Lord Breckin’s safety, only for her husband’s. But is that so unusual? she asked her reflection. To worry most about the man one loves? What if he never comes home to me? But suddenly she could not face that possibility. Hawk would come home. She would see to it. She had never told him she loved him. She had never really thought about it, and at the moment she could not think when it was that she had first recognized the fact. It was not a thing one thought about, after all. Love was not what one looked for in one’s marriage. Other things were supposed to be more important, and love, after all, was most unfashionable. Peasants indulged, of course. And married persons, though not, of course, with their respective spouses. But no one else had ever stirred her like Hawk could merely by speaking to her. And his touch—well, one need not think about that right now.
Indeed, just the thought of him sent shivers up and down her spine. Her skin seemed to quiver all over as though he had run his hands up and down her sides, and even her breasts swelled. Only from the thought of him. It was unthinkable that he might not return to her. On that thought she jumped up and hurried to the wardrobe, flinging things from the drawer at the bottom as she searched out her breeches, shirt, waistcoat, and boots. Then, from the top shelf, she dragged down the long cloak she had worn in London. It would conceal her figure, just in case anyone should take more than a casual glance in her direction. Her hair was more of a problem. The beaver hat was not to be thought of. No one would wear such a thing riding out in the night. But at last she unearthed an old knitted cap. It took some doing, but she managed to push her hair up into it, and when she was finished, she was fairly certain it would take more than ordinary attention to detail before her disguise would be penetrated. Most of the men in the stableyard would be bleary-eyed from their short naps, and hopefully Prince Nicolai wouldn’t even see her.
Ready at last, she began to fidget, waiting and wondering if perhaps Harry had fallen asleep. The hands of the little jeweled clock on her dressing table approached midnight and passed it. Five minutes slipped slowly by, then ten. Suddenly, there was a light scratching at her door. Then it opened and Harry slipped inside.
“He’s going, Mollie. The others have already gone down, and I thought for certain you were wrong, and he meant simply to go to bed, but then he opened his door and looked out into the corridor. I can tell you, Mollie, I nearly suffered an apoplexy, thinking he had seen me. But he didn’t, for he shut the door again. But I saw at once that he was dressed for riding. He means to go. Why hasn’t he gone down already?”
“He may have done so,” she replied, thinking quickly. “No doubt he means only those who might wonder about his horse being readied to think he has gone with the searchers. He can move out onto the causeway with them and be thought by the gentlemen to be one of the servants and by the servants to be one of the gentlemen, so long as he takes care to let no one see him too closely. That should not be too difficult at this time of night. Indeed, I am hoping the same thing for myself, am I not?”
Harry looked her over from tip to toe. “You’ll do, I think. No one who does not know you well would think for a moment that you are the Marchioness of Hawkstone. That is a certainty. But Ramsay will know you, and so will some of our men if they see you. By the bye, Mollie, Teddy said he will be ready for you. He will have Baron standing just inside the stable in the shadows, he said.”
Taking time after that only to extract his promise that he would go to his bedchamber if not to bed, Mollie left Harry and hurried down the back stairs to the rear hall and out into the stableyard, taking care to take long strides and to move as if she knew exactly where she was going. No one seemed to take any heed of her, and most of the men in the yard were already mounted. Teddy awaited her just inside the stable.
“Thank you, Teddy. Where is his highness?”
“’Is man be ’olding ’is nag yonder, Miss Mollie,” the man said quietly, giving a slight nod of his head in the direction of the archway leading into the central courtyard. “’Aven’t seen ’is ’ighness yet. Wait now, there ’e be. Just slipping through the archway. Musta come through the court, ’e must.”
“Good,” Mollie said, enormously satisfied to have her suspicions confirmed. “Now, where is Lord Ramsay?”
“Ahead o’ this lot, I’m thinkin’.”
Of course, he would be in the lead, Mollie thought ruefully. “Look here, Teddy,” she said aloud, “you’ve got to get him. Tell him that what I suspected before has come to pass and that he must make some excuse for falling behind. I want him with me when things begin happening out there.”
“I’ll tell ’im, Miss Mollie. ’E won’t like it much, I’m thinkin’.”
No, he wouldn’t, Mollie told herself. She wondered if Ramsay would give her away. There was a good deal of activity in the stableyard now, for upward of twenty men, counting their own people, had joined in the search. They seemed nearly ready to depart, and Mollie swung onto her own saddle and took her quiver and bow from Teddy’s hand, slinging them across her back without so much as taking her eyes from the milling group of horsemen, now beginning to move toward the postern gate. Suddenly, one of the throng separated himself from the others and moved directly toward her. Mollie held her breath for a moment, then recognized her brother-in-law.
He rode up beside her. “What is the meaning of this, Mollie? You cannot for a moment think I mean to let you accompany us.”
“You cannot stop me,” she replied firmly. “I am not your only new recruit either. His highness is there in the archway, and I’m thinking he has no intention of calling attention to that fact. He is merely using your departure as cover for his own. We’ve got to discover his destination, Ramsay, and we dare not tell the others. Two of us might succeed in following him. Twenty men certainly could not do so.”
He let out a long breath. “By Jove, Moll, I believe you’ve had his measure straight along. But there is still no reason for you to go. In fact, it would be downright foolish. I can take one of the other men with me.”
“Who?” she countered. “Who among them all is completely worthy of our trust? Even one of our own men might well have been suborned, and you dare not take the chance. Moreover, if you send me back inside, you will draw attention to me,” she added, remembering the argument she had used to convince Harry. “You cannot take that chance either, lest you put him on his guard.”
Lord Ramsay was silent for a moment. Then he sighed. “Have it your own way, then. I daresay you would only follow behind if I were to forbid you to come with us.”
Mollie nodded, grinning at him.
Sparing only a moment to warn her that the occasion was not one for levity, Ramsay then turned his mount away and rode toward the head of the group. Moments later, there was only the echo of their horses clattering hooves in the stableyard, but moonlight glinted on harness and spurs and reflected their shadows on the water as the party made its way across the rear causeway toward the woods lining the lakeshore.
16
MOLLIE WATCHED FROM THE shadows of the stable until the shapes she knew to be Prince Nicolai and his man had detached themselves from the blackness of the archway, falling in behind the main party as they headed out across the causeway. Before following, she leaned down from the saddle to speak to her groom.
“Teddy,” she said quietly, “I depend upon you to see that no one else leaves after I do. There can be no way of knowing whether there are other untrustworthy persons about or not. Use force only if necessary, but do not allow anyone else to cross over to the shore from the castle tonight.”
“Aye, Miss Mollie. There be still enough o’ the lads left t’ see to that. Ye’ll not wish to ’ave t’ guard yer back. Not wi’ that vermin ahead o’ ye, ’n all. I’ll just see them gates shut for a bit after ye’re gone.”
She nodded, but then, remembering Sir James Smithers, she reminded Teddy to be on the lookout for those members of the other half of t
he search party who might be returning to catch a few hours of sleep. He assured her that he would keep watch himself. Satisfied, Mollie guided her horse out into the stableyard as far as the postern gate. She had a clear view of the horsemen on the causeway, the last few of whom were just approaching the lakeshore. Giving them time to enter the woods, she followed, knowing her figure to be as clearly lit by the great white moon above as those ahead of her had been. She had no great fear of being seen, however, for the woods were thick, and the chances of anyone looking back now were slim. Nevertheless, the sound of her horse’s hooves on the hard cobblestones of the causeway sounded unnaturally loud to her ears, and although she knew no one up ahead would hear the sound over that of the men’s voices added to the jingle of the horses’ harness and the thud of hoofbeats, her nerves were on end until she, too, had ridden through the long grass waving gently in the soft breeze blowing across the lake, and into the concealment of the woods.
Moonlight trickled through the trees as the search party followed in reverse much the same route that she and Lord Ramsay had taken over the ridge the day they had returned from the boxing match in Gill’s Green. She wondered whether Prince Nicolai and his man would stay with the main party as far as the valley road. Surely it would be easier for them to separate from the group while they still had the thick cover of the trees to protect them. Accordingly, she allowed her mount to draw a little nearer, straining her eyes to make out the two figures at the rear. Even so, she could not be absolutely certain that the two riders she sought had not separated from the others immediately upon entering the woods, so when two horsemen suddenly came toward her out of the dense shrubbery, she nearly cried out in alarm before she recognized Lord Ramsay and his groom.
“Kept Bill with me in case we need him,” he said quietly after he had greeted her. “I sent one of Haycock’s lads with Bathurst’s aide to take the men on to meet Smithers and tell him what we suspect. If your precious prince is no longer with the group at that time, Sir James will take one group of the men to Salehurst to await word from us and send another to Cross-in-Hand. That way, we won’t have to search far for help if we find Hawk.”
“I am not even sure Nicolai is still with us now,” Mollie confessed as the groom fell in behind them. “There was no way by which I could keep him in sight at first without letting myself be seen, but no one has separated since I caught up with the group.”
“Never fear. That’s his highness just ahead. Got a good look at his face when he rode by us just now. He doesn’t know these woods very well, remember. I daresay he will stay close to the others until he can see the valley road before cutting away.”
“Where can he be going?” Mollie asked. “If he does not know the countryside, he must be meeting the others somewhere that can be easily described to him.”
“Not necessarily,” the young man told her. “Hawk suggested that they might have a regular haunt hereabouts. After all, we are located directly between two main ports, and there are highroads both to the east and west of us leading to the coast. All the sign seems to indicate they are heading toward the Hastings Road, but that may be by way of drawing us away from Eastbourne. We should have a better notion of how things stand after keeping an eye on your prince for a bit.”
“He is not my prince!” Mollie muttered in low but nonetheless angry tones. “And if your idiotish brother had believed that from the outset and put his mind to discovering just what sort of man Nicolai is, instead of wasting time indulging in foolish bursts of temperament—”
“Was it so foolish, Moll?” Ramsay interrupted without a thought for the curious groom riding behind them. “Seems to me you gave him good reason for his jealousy.”
She eyed him obliquely. “He really was jealous, wasn’t he? I thought at first he was merely asserting his authority, you know.”
Ramsay chuckled. “The night you were throwing things?”
She gave a small affirmative sound.
“I’d say,” he told her with a touch of laughter still in his voice, “that you may safely depend upon the fact that he was not merely coming the stern husband over you. He was still smoldering when we reached the bookroom, so I’d not be far off to say you were lucky I appeared on the scene. Else you might not have gotten out of that business with a whole skin, my girl. Took him a moment or two even after we’d arrived downstairs to put his mind to my little problem, I can tell you.”
She started to explain to him just what had happened to put Hawk in such a state that night, but she had scarcely begun when Ramsay suddenly touched her arm in warning, and she realized that their quarry had slowed their pace. A moment later, she clearly saw the two horsemen at the rear of the search party turn aside onto a barely existent path. No one ahead of the pair seemed to realize that their number had been reduced by two, but Mollie and her two companions were easily able to follow them as they wound their way further into the trees, away from the other riders.
When they came to the edge of a small clearing, it was not the valley road they saw below them, but the Bourne, looking much like a path of glittering silver slicing through the blackness of the valley. They decided, without speaking, not to follow the others through that clearing, because it was more dangerous now than ever to let themselves be seen. Instead, they circled through the trees. Guided by the sound of the horses ahead, it was not long before they caught sight of the two men again.
It was no longer safe to speak to each other, for they could not be certain that the others might not hear them. The sound of the three horses, so long as the other pair kept moving, would be mistaken for an echo of their own two, but voices would not. Consequently, Mollie found herself alone with her thoughts, and the great fear that she had scarcely dared to recognize before now threatened to overcome her.
There were still so many things she wanted to discuss with Hawk, and once this business was done—and it would be done satisfactorily, she told herself firmly—she and her husband would talk. They had skimmed over a number of important issues, but she had known since the moment she realized he was capable of jealousy that he cared about her, that his behavior was not due to mere possessiveness or a wish to assert his authority over her. So it was just possible she had been right about his feelings all those years ago. If that was true, then why had he gone and why had he stayed away? Truly, it was time to clarify certain matters between them.
If he lived…The thought came unbidden and she refused to let it linger. He was alive. She would know if he were not. And he would remain alive. She would see to it. By whatever means were necessary. She glanced at Ramsay and saw that his jaw was set with the same determination she felt within herself. The two of them would carry it off. While other searchers rode in circles trying to make head or tail of false trails by torchlight and moonlight, she and her brother-in-law would find Hawk and Lord Breckin. She smiled as she remembered that his lordship was also a prisoner. She had not spared him much anxiety. He, like her husband, seemed very much the sort of man who would land on his feet, if for no other reason than she could not imagine the gentle fop with a hair of his head out of place.
It seemed that they had ridden for hours along an unseen track that paralleled the river below, but at last they came to the outskirts of a village, and the two men ahead of them slowed their pace from a trot to a walk. They clearly had no wish to pass through the village and seemed to be arguing about their best course, but finally they turned south, keeping near enough to use the village as a landmark but far enough away not to be observed by a wakeful villager. Some moments later, Mollie realized they were nearing the Hastings highroad.
Again, the pair ahead seemed to wish to keep clear of a route that might be inhabited, but after keeping watch for some moments, they rode up onto the road itself and urged their mounts to a canter. Mollie and Ramsay, reining in, glanced at each other in dismay.
“What do we do now?” Mollie asked. “We can scarcely follow them along the highroad in such moonlight as this. They will be cer
tain to see us. And we cannot maintain that pace if we do not. They will outstrip us in no time.”
Ramsay frowned, considering her words, but at the same time Bill spoke up quickly, gesturing in the direction taken by the other two. “They be a-turnin’ off, m’lord!”
“Ah,” Ramsay observed with satisfaction, “they merely wished to cross the road. Come, we’ll catch them quickly enough now.”
Instead of following along the highroad, however they crossed directly over, slipping at once in the woods on the other side of the road. But it was not long before they came upon a path that looked to be in the right place to have been the turning taken by Nicolai and his man. They turned along it, listening for sounds from ahead that would tell them they were on the right track. It was not sound that stopped them, however, but the sight of a campfire glowing dimly through the trees ahead. Drawing in again, Ramsay leaned close to Mollie.
“I think we’d best pull back into the woods and dismount, Moll. No telling but what whoever lies ahead might not have a lookout or two posted to catch the unwary. We’d be better off creeping on foot through the trees than approaching along the trail like this.”
Obediently she turned her mount after his, with Bill following her, and when they were sufficiently distant from the trail, she dismounted and followed the two men, both of whom now has pistols drawn, through the trees to the edge of a clearing. The glow from the fire dimmed as they approached, and she could hear a low voice speaking in a tone of reproach. Creeping up behind Ramsay, who stood close to the large trunk of an ancient oak tree, Mollie peered into the moonlit clearing to see a burly figure scraping dirt over the fire. There appeared to be some sort of low-voiced argument, and she could see the tall, broad-chested figure of Prince Nicolai. There were others as well, perhaps as many as five or six. Mollie shivered. She had not thought there would be so many. Suddenly she wished they had brought other men with them. Then she heard Nicolai’s voice clearly above the others.
