The Proper Wife

by Julia Justiss

  Such a radical turnabout might make him appear the idiot, but he could never be embarrassed about his choice. “Clarissa Beaumont,” he said proudly.

  Englemere froze, his glass halfway to his lips, and Hal choked on his wine. For a moment neither man uttered a word. Then Englemere burst out laughing.

  “Clare? By heaven, Colonel, she’ll lead you a merry dance!”

  Sinjin grinned at him. “I fear you’re entirely correct. Nonetheless, I’ll have her and no other.”

  “You’ve already offered for her, then?”

  Sinjin thought of the stilted two-sentence proposal he’d uttered and the quite predictable response. “N-not exactly. I’ve made some…tentative moves, which I have to confess did not meet with entire success.” An understatement, that. “But I have hopes of a happy outcome in the near future.”

  Hal poured himself another glass, raised it at Sinjin and downed it in one gulp. “Brave man,” he said.

  “Nonsense,” Englemere said. “Hal finds Clare a bit…spirited for his taste, but I heartily approve your choice. I’ve known the young lady for some years and have watched her grow from a striking but somewhat shallow girl to an intelligent, resourceful, dynamic woman. I wish you both very happy.”

  Delighted to have reached an understanding with the two men who’d been so instrumental in helping find a way out of his financial difficulties, Sinjin poured another glass all around. As they were about to drink, Alex Standish walked in, a beaming smile on his face.

  “Ah, Colonel, you’ve broken out the champagne! You must have heard the news!”

  Sinjin poured him a glass and handed it to him with a quizzical look. “What news is that?”

  “Lady Barbara has accepted my hand. I spoke with her father this morning, so it’s official. Gentleman, you see before you the happiest man on earth!”

  Of course, this announcement required the ordering of additional champagne. While the friends were pouring another celebratory round, a waiter approached Alex.

  “Lieutenant Standish, there’s a young…person outside with a message for you which be accounted most urgent.”

  The lieutenant looked up, startled. “Urgent? Send him up at once, man.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, Lieutenant, but I cannot do that. Club rules. The young person is a female.”

  Alex’s face paled. “A lady?”

  “No sir, a servant girl, I’d say.”

  Frowning, Alex set down his glass. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I think I’d best go outside.”

  Hal rose too. “Go with you,” he offered. “Help.”

  Had it been anyone else, Sinjin thought, his lieutenant might have stiffened with affront at the insinuation he might not be capable of handling whatever situation had arisen. But with Hal, it was impossible to take offense.

  “Sounds havey-cavey,” Englemere agreed. “Shall we all go?”

  A few moments later, all four men exited the rear stairs to find a young girl in a gray housemaid’s uniform waiting by the gate, a stout footman standing guard nearby. As soon as Alex, limping on his weak leg, made it to the bottom of the steps, she rushed over to seize his arm.

  “Please, Lieutenant, ye must come at once.” Her eyes were red from weeping and fresh tears sheened their surface. “It’s the M-Mistress!”

  “What is it, Maddie? What’s happened?”

  “Oh, sir, I begged her not to go, but she wouldn’t listen! Now she’s been gone since afore five, and the footman too, and ain’t nobody seen ’em since, with it goin’ on seven. Please, ye must go to the inn!”

  Clarissa struggled to open her heavy eyelids. A glimmer of light pierced the gloom, threatening to make her queasy stomach revolt, and she hastily closed them again. Her pulse unsteady, she took long careful breaths in the darkness, waiting for her stomach to calm, trying to determine where she was and remember what happened.

  She’d taken a hackney. To the coaching inn. Maddie had watched her depart. Though the inn bustled with travelers, customers at their dinner, and locals raising a pint of home-brewed, she spied the runner straightaway.

  He’d frowned when she nodded to him, obviously not happy to have her there, though she slipped at once to a side table where, in the midst of so busy a crowd, she didn’t see how her presence could interrupt his work. Then in the corner she spied the dark-haired woman who’d claimed Maddie as her runaway apprentice.

  She’d hunched in her chair, pulled her collar higher, and sipped tea brought her by a scowling barmaid, grateful for its warmth and her footman on watch nearby. The woman circled to a girl with wide, frightened eyes who’d just entered the inn, a large basket bound up with rope in her hands. Spoke with the girl, patted her shoulder.

  Clarissa had tensed, waiting. Surely the runner would make his move. But then the scene started to go hazy, dizziness stole over her. The last thing she remembered was her head hitting the hard wooden table…

  She opened her eyes wide, wincing at the light. Someone must have drugged her tea!

  As quickly as she could given the queasiness in her gut, she looked around her. She lay on a narrow wooden bed with a lumpy straw mattress covered by an ancient, dusty coverlet. Mercifully she still wore her own garments, though her cloak and bonnet were nowhere to be seen in the small, bare room whose only other furnishings were a table topped by a washbowl and a chipped pitcher.

  Somehow she’d always imagined a brothel would be gaudier.

  Before that useless and hysterical thought popped out of mind, the door opened and a short, slim man dressed in the first style of elegance walked in.

  “My, what a prize the bauds have brought me tonight,” Lord John Weston drawled. “Miss Clarissa Beaumont.”

  She sat up straight, the hair on the back of her neck bristling. “L-Lord John?”

  He made her a bow. “Kind—if unexpected—of you to drop by my humble establishment. When Maisie told me some fancy woman had stolen away one of her girls, I thought she was simply telling me a Banbury tale to excuse her own incompetence. So it was true.”

  Somehow, seeing Lord John here instead of some unknown villain calmed her. Lord John she could deal with.

  “Where is my footman and the runner?” she demanded in as imperious a tone as she could command.

  He laughed. “Still playing the high-and-mighty Miss Beaumont, Diamond of the Ton?” He swept her with a glance from head to toe. “You’ll soon find out, my aristocratic beauty, that I rule here.”

  “You cannot think to hold me. My household knows where I went. If I do not return promptly, they will mount a hue and cry, which will eventually lead them here. Surely you cannot want that.”

  He shrugged. “An inconvenience to Maisie, perhaps. I shall merely accelerate the plans already in motion. Adding your loveliness to the fortune I’ll carry with me, ah, that makes the game even better.”

  He walked over to the bed and reached out his hand.

  “Don’t you dare touch me.”

  He held his hand motionless, a bare inch from her face. “Oh, I shall touch you. In every conceivable way I shall touch you, whether you desire it or no. You’ve taunted, teased, rejected me for years. You’re in my power now, and the reckoning will be all the sweeter.”

  “You would be much wiser to let me go.” If she could keep him talking, she might be able to get past him to the door.

  “A fine one to prate of wisdom you are, my sweet. But who am I to complain of the foolish, passionate nature that brought you to me? Not when I will soon savor the taste of it myself.”

  She stood up, hoping despite her disheveled gown to act the picture of dignified hauteur. “Nonetheless, if you hold me against my will, you’ll pay an even higher price. Abducting a powerless country lass is one thing. Attempting to abduct a member of the aristocracy is sheer lunacy.” She edged toward the door.

  “Transportation at the least, if not the hangman,” he agreed, and then grabbed her shoulder. “Which is why you’re going nowhere—just now. Tomorrow morni
ng, very early, we’ll leave together. I’ve a hankering to see the exotic lands of the far east, where I’ve done…business.”

  Remembering Englemere’s words, she could well imagine what sort of business it had been. But he was a coward, and all bluster. Surely he wouldn’t dare kidnap her! “I wouldn’t cross the street with you.”

  She struggled to break his grip, but he held on, surprisingly strong. Sick fear coiling in her stomach, she whirled suddenly to throw a punch at him.

  The blow struck off-center, and while he reeled from it, he did not go down. She scrambled to the door, wrenched the knob.

  He reached her before she could open it, grabbed her and jerked her to face him. With the back of one hand he dealt her a stunning blow, then dragged her to the bed.

  “So you like it rough?” he panted as he forced her back. “Happy to oblige, when I come back to take you.”

  Despite her fear, disgust rolled through her. She’d die before she submitted to this miserable muckworm.

  “You’d better bring pistol and knife, for I’ll never submit to you any other way.”

  “That can be arranged,” he snarled, his hot breath scorching her face. “Or perhaps I’ll bring back several of the hearty gentlemen we employ to guard our noble portals. Large, unwashed, rather rough types they are, and generally not fussy in their requirements. Two of them holding you down should do it. Such a show you’ll provide them while I take you. Think of it, Clarissa, their crude hard members stiffening as they watch me strip you, plunge into your maidenhead. I might even let them have a go, once I’m finished.”

  “You are despicable.”

  He laughed. “You’ve not even begun to discover.” Before she could flinch away, he touched her jaw where a throbbing bruise had already begun to form. “Remember my little love tap. I’ll be back, very soon, my sweet angel, to finish what I started. And don’t bother wondering if you can escape my hospitality. The door will be locked, the windows are barred, and even were they not, this room is three floors up.”

  He walked to the door, then turned to stare at her, his insolent gaze raking her from slippers to forehead. “You belong to me now, Clarissa, without hope of escape. Think about it. I certainly shall.” He slipped out the door, and she heard the bolt slide in place.

  Fear and fury held her motionless for a moment, but then she leapt from the chair and ran to the door. Unlike the other flimsily-made objects in the room, it was constructed of solid oaken planks, its hardware of iron that didn’t budge when she rattled the handle. Pressing her ear to the rough surface, she could hear only the shuffle of feet, a groan about whose origin she preferred not to speculate, and distant, raucous laughter.

  If this house were indeed owned by Sir John, no one within its walls would dare help her anyway.

  Heart pounding, she scurried to the window, which was barred as he’d described. Peering out between the wooden slats, in the darkness she could just barely make out the street far below.

  She sank to her knees, hands on the window frame, fear accelerating to terror in her heart. How could she have been so stupidly naive? Hadn’t Englemere warned an operation as complex as the one that had captured Maddie would be well-funded and well-run?

  At least some of the posting inn’s employees, if not the owner himself, must be part of the ring, must have seen her nod to the runner when she first came in. Or the black-haired woman remembered her from the night in Covent Garden. How one disaster had led to another.

  The bawd must have sent over the drugged tea. But what had happened to the runner and her footman?

  For her to have been taken, the perpetrators must have incapacitated those two men first. She felt the sting of remorse through her fear. Bad enough that her impulsive, ill-thought-out escapade had landed her in peril. What havoc had she brought into the lives of James and Mr. Beevis with her well-meant but disastrously naive intervention?

  And was she now to suffer the same fate as Maddie—or worse? Drugged or beaten into submission for Sir John’s pleasure, taken abroad to use until he tired of her and then sold to some potentate’s brothel?

  Tears blurred her eyes and her heart raced so fast she thought she would faint. She gripped the windowsill until her nails bit into the wood.

  Enough. Her reckless, thoughtless, stupid behavior had landed her here, but Clarissa Beaumont would not succumb without a fight. There had to be some way out.

  Sir John wouldn’t return for a while—clearly he wanted to give her time to worry over her fate—but she couldn’t count on his absenting himself for too long. And though there was a slim chance she might be able to break free from a man of his slight build, he’d promised to bring back reinforcements.

  Panic rippled up from deep within her and shuddered through her entire body. What would happen then didn’t bear thinking of.

  Act now. Hurry. She took a gasping breath, grabbed the edge of a window barrier and willed her mind to focus as she pulled herself up off the floor. The slats barring the glass weren’t nearly as solid as the oaken planks of the door. Could she find something to pry the boards loose, or something hard with which to smash through them, the window would break. The opening was rather narrow, but she was reasonably sure she could fit through it.

  She peered once more out of the narrow gaps toward the street far below. She couldn’t jump from this height without killing herself, or breaking a leg at least. Once she got the window cleared she’d need a rope.

  She whirled around, searching for any object in the meagerly furnished room that might be of use.

  Sprinting to the bed, she ran her fingers under the mattress. As she expected, a rope lattice supported the thin straw pallet. She yanked the mattress aside.

  The rope appeared sturdy. She need only unknot it from the frame and tie the individual cords together.

  But what to free the window?

  She jumped to the table, but though rickety, its legs and top were too thick to be of use prying loose the slats. The only remaining objects in the room were the sad-looking coverlet and the washbasin.

  She grabbed the bowl, wrapped it in the coverlet and tossed it to the floor, where it shattered with a muffled crash. Scratching aside the material, she seized the flat bottom piece and smashed the remaining side sections away, then scrambled to her feet and went to attack the window slats.

  Sweat making her fingers slippery, she cut her palm against the ragged edge of the bowl as she tried to force the broken pottery piece between the slat and the window. At first it seemed the shard was too thick, that she’d never be able to fit it into the space, and she cursed, wishing she’d thought to conceal something—a small knife, a nail file—somewhere on her person. Finally, blood from her palm mingling with pottery dust and the tears of frustration dripping off her cheeks, she succeeded in prying up one corner of the board.

  After that, the work went more quickly. Once she’d freed the first slat she used that as a lever to free the rest. Then to the bed, to unknot rope with fingers made clumsy by desperation, and then swiftly knot the free pieces together.

  How much time had elapsed? Twenty minutes? An hour? She had no idea, knew only a driving imperative to get out of the room as soon as possible. Once Sir John came back, she was lost.

  She ran to the window, set down her coiled rope. She’d need something to anchor it on. Looking around wildly, she chose the bedstead and ran back to drag it close to the window. Even should her weight pull it downward, it was too large to fit through the window frame.

  As a clock in her head ticked away the precious minutes, she stationed her rope, grabbed the pitcher off the table and peered through the dirty glass into the street below. As soon as there was enough activity there to mask the sound of breaking glass, she would strike.

  Nerves stretched to the breaking point, she was almost ready to jump regardless when the dim sounds of a scuffle on the street below caught her ear. Peering out, she could see people gathering near the main road on which the house stood. Taking a d
eep breath, she smashed the pitcher through the window.

  Chapter Twenty

  In the flickering torchlight of White’s back entrance, Englemere stepped closer and gave the servant girl a swift inspection. “Are you the young lady Miss Beaumont rescued?”

  Sinjin, who had been standing by listening with polite interest, felt a shock jolt through him. “What has Clarissa to do with this?”

  He advanced on the girl, who shrank away from him toward the footman.

  “Colonel, please,” Alex cautioned, moving between him and the cowering Maddie. “Are you saying that Miss Beaumont went to the coaching inn where you were abducted?”

  A second shock hummed through Sinjin’s nerves. “Abducted?” he almost shouted.

  Englemere moved closer to the girl. “Don’t be frightened, Maddie. My wife is your mistress’s closest friend, and these other gentlemen are her friends too. It may be essential for Miss Beaumont’s safety that you tell us everything you know, as quickly as possible.”

  Maddie looked over at Lieutenant Standish, who gave her an encouraging nod. “Like I told the lieutenant, Mistress said as how she’d go to the inn and talk with that Bow Street feller what was watching out fer Maisie. Done stopped her once from takin’ a girl already, Mistress said. She said she weren’t goin’ ta do nobbit but watch, but ah, sir, she don’t know these people! And now she be gone near on two hours, and I was so afeared, I had to come look fer ye. Ye must go help her, please sir!”

  “Where is the inn?” Sinjin demanded. “Take us there.”

  Maddie’s eyes widened and a single tear streaked down her cheek. “Don’t worry none, Maddie,” said the footman waiting beside her. “I’ll be with ye, and I won’t let nobody touch ye.”

  “I know this is difficult, but we need your help, Maddie. Will you do this, for your Mistress’s sake?”

  The girl took a deep, shuddering breath. “Aye.”

  To travel more discreetly they summoned a hackney, and during the drive Alex and Englemere related the circumstances of Maddie’s rescue. Cursing Clarissa for her foolhardiness, under his breath for Maddie’s sake, Sinjin nevertheless had to admit her stubborn courage.