Diana Sensational Spinster's Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book)

by Charlotte Stone

  “What were you thinking anyway, running away from your kin, Marilee? How ungrateful you are.”

  If Marilee could have summoned up enough spit in her painfully dry mouth, she would have spat in Marshall's face.

  “You are no kin of mine. You tricked my mother into marrying you. You bastard, you ruined her life and her health!”

  Marshall gave her a cold look. “It is what men do to women, and hopefully, you will do a little better. Either way, we are getting out of here, my love, and Gretna Green is in our future.”

  Marilee sucked in her breath hard in horror. If she had it until March, the title of Countess of Carrington and all its rights and privileges belonged to her. When she married, it would all pass to her husband.

  Perhaps thinking she was going to try to yell, Steven gave her a stern shake before turning her to look at Sam. Sam lay terribly still on the carpet, and when Marilee tried to go to him, Steven held her fast. Struggling against his grasp was like fighting against a brick wall, and she finally went still because she knew she would need her strength.

  When Marshall spoke, his tone was almost terrifyingly conversational. “Do you know what we did before we decided to marry ourselves into high society, Marilee? Be a nice girl and call me father, and I'll tell you.”

  “Yes... Father.” The words were rotten in her mouth, but she could not stop herself from trying to appease him in some way.

  “We used to be turnkeys at Newgate. We took care of all the prisoners, held their money for them, fed ‘em, arranged comforts and all that. And when they didn't pay up or when there were someone out there who wanted them hurt more than they could pay to prevent, well, that was our job as well.”

  Marilee was held immobile in Steven's arms.

  Marshall crossed the floor toward, his eyes terrifying.

  “And believe me, pet, we did our job well. So, if you want your lost little earl to live, you'll do as we say. He'll have a sore head and nothing more tomorrow. If you defy us... well, it will only go the worse for you.”

  “Oh, God...”

  “Now, will you be a good girl and come with us to Gretna Green? Otherwise, things in this manor are going to get more than a little messy.”

  Marilee's mind rifled through a dozen plans for escape, but in the end, she knew it was hopeless. Numbly, she nodded.

  Marshall grinned that terrible grin.

  “What a good girl you are when you are not being a rotten bitch. Now come on. We're getting out of here.”

  They tied Sam up with the cords from the curtains, and they dumped him unceremoniously behind his desk. Given his reclusive habits, the servants might not come looking for him for hours. Even as they hurried her through the door, Marilee felt her heart breaking at not being able to get one last glimpse of the man she knew she loved.

  I love you, Sam. I love you, and I am so sorry.

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  16

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  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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  Sam awoke with a throbbing head, and for a moment, all he wanted to do was to return to the embrace of darkness. Then memory surged like the roaring tide, and he realized with fury that the two men he had invited in, thinking they were merely relatives Marilee had misunderstood, had taken her from him. The self-loathing and recriminations could come later. The only thing that mattered now was Marilee. Still bound hand to hand and foot to foot, Sam squirmed out beyond his desk to a room filled with moonlight. His heart sank. The servants were fast asleep, and there hadn't been a bell to the servants' quarters from the library in years. He was on his own.

  No amount of tugging or biting at the cords would work them free, and Sam sunk into despair before his mind flashed to the night he had gotten Marilee so drunk.

  "He said that if I were not so young and of noble birth besides, he would take me on as an apprentice. Some of the most famous magicians can contort themselves like that. Others must learn by popping out the joint, which sounds perfectly horrid."

  Before he could think twice about it, Sam gritted his teeth and slammed the edge of his hand into the corner of the desk. He knew he had to do it fast and hard, or else he would lose his nerve and be unable to do it at all. He shouted at the pain of dislocating his thumb, but it was enough. It gave him the room he needed to slip out of the bonds, and then he pushed the joint back into place with a groan. The pain was intense, but he was so furious, so desperate for Marilee that he didn't care at all.

  In a matter of moment, Sam had risen from the floor and started making his way to the door. He was going to find Marilee and punish the men who had terrified her so.

  After that—because he refused to imagine a world where he did not rescue her—they would talk, and then he would never, ever let her go again.

  * * *

  The desolation of the countryside worked in Sam's favor. Only two roads led from Huntingdon, one south to London and one to points north. A sleepy groom, shaken out of his slumber, indicated that the men's carriage had gone north, and with a curse, Sam rode Briseis out of the stable as if hell were on his heels.

  A man on a horse was faster than a carriage, no matter how good the carriage, but they had the benefit of several hours' head start. He knew he could not push Briseis at a dead gallop the whole way, but she was of a line that was born to run. From time to time, he pulled her back to a trot or even a walk, but it was as if she could sense the urgency of their mission just as he could.

  Throughout the long hours on horseback, Sam couldn't stop his mind from going over what had happened, how he had been struck down in his own house and how terrified Marilee had been. He told himself over and over again that he would make it up to her. He would make sure she never looked that frightened again. He would not fail. He felt like a clock that had been wound too tight. If anything made the tension inside him wind tighter, he might explode.

  When he saw the carriage in front of him, traveling at night when most put into an inn, he gritted his teeth and touched the revolver holstered at his side. He did not want to use it, but he knew deep in his heart that if he had to, he absolutely would.

  They were a long way from Huntingdon, but Sam had roamed Yorkshire for years. He knew the area, and with a gentle nudge to Briseis’ side, he urged her off the road and into the woods. With Marilee so very close, it was almost painful to pull out of sight of the carriage, but there were two, perhaps three men including the driver, ranged against him. He had to be cautious or all hope was lost.

  Cutting through the forest, Sam circumvented a kink in the road. It allowed him to get in front of the carriage, and then he was on a short bluff above the path the carriage would take. Sam was grimly amused to realize he had taken the same stance a highwayman would take, but then the carriage was lumbering its way down the road toward him, and he had no time to think.

  “Hold! You will go no farther!”

  The driver hesitated, and Sam fired a warning shot into the air. The driver pulled up the horses with a curse, and Sam hesitated. He wanted nothing more than to go down to the carriage and take Marilee away from all this but putting himself close to the Whitting men would be foolish in the extreme.

  “Everyone in the carriage come out. I will not hesitate to shoot.”

  For one terrible moment, he thought they would not come out, and then they did. Sam scowled, fighting back the panic that swelled over him. There were the Whittings, but Marilee was gone.

  “We got your money right here, let us go.”

  Sam didn't even look at the bag the elder Whitting threw on the ground.

  “Where the hell is Marilee?'

  “What do you... Oh, Jesus, you're the earl.”

  “What have you done with her?”

  The tall man, Steven, shrugged. “We gave her a little bit of laudanum to help her sleep. She got a better rest than you did.”

  �
�Bring her out and put her on the ground. I want to see that she's safe.”

  A look passed between the two brothers, and Steven reached back into the carriage, pulling out a dreadfully still Marilee.

  In some distant part of his brain, Sam knew he should have them leave Marilee on the road while he drove them off. Instead, he saw his still love, and his brain shut off. He came roaring down the slope. Moving as if they had planned it, Marshall lunged forward to grab Briseis’ reins and Steven bundled Marilee back into the carriage, leaping in after her.

  “Get her north, I'll take care of the fop,” Marshall shouted.

  Sam roared with rage, and even as the carriage clattered down the road, he was swinging out of the saddle, landing a hefty kick to Marshall's ribs as he came down.

  “Let's see what you do with me when I'm on my feet and facing you, Whitting.”

  Marshall was bigger than he was, and somehow, that only drove Sam's rage. This man thought he was going to take Marilee? This was the man who had terrified Marilee so? Sam rained blows down on the man, and though he got a few blows in return, he didn't even feel them.

  The only thing that stopped him was Marshall, his face bloodied and arm dangling useless at his side, raised his hands for mercy.

  “Forgive us, my lord, forgive, we never meant to...”

  Sam gave the man one more contemptuous look and then struck him a hard blow across the head. Marshall went down like a sack of bricks, and Sam pulled himself back up on Briseis’ back. He felt as he were on fire, and the only thing that could quench it was seeing Marilee.

  Briseis’ hooves beat a hard tattoo on the moonlit road, and in less than a quarter of an hour, he caught up with the coach again.

  “Stop the coach, stop the coach, damn you, or I'll shoot.”

  Another warning shot convinced the driver he was serious, and Sam was barely on the ground when Steven Whitting came out of the carriage, swinging hard at him. Steven seemed to be less hasty than his brother, a far more dangerous fighter. He closed the distance too fast for Sam to use his revolver, and in a matter of seconds, Sam was fighting for his life.

  He narrowly managed to miss Steven's hard blows to the head, and then he nearly got his feet kicked out from underneath him. He had a feeling that if he fell, Steven would simply stave in his head.

  “You should just let us go. She's nothing to you.”

  “You son of a bitch, she's everything.”

  With a strength born of fury, Sam drove Steven back toward the carriage. He was so tired that he knew he had to end the fight soon, and he did not notice that Steven had fallen back and back farther, making Sam overextend himself each time. Sam finally threw one punch that took him too close, and Steven grabbed his arm in a punishing grip.

  Just when Steven was certain his arm was going to be broken and he was going to be left by the side of the road like so much trash, a miracle happened. The heavy carriage door whipped open as if by some divine force, and it caught Steven along the side. It wasn't enough to hurt him, but it was enough to startle him. He leaped aside with a cry, and Sam sprang after him. He finally had the clearance to reach his gun, and when he did, he reversed it and clubbed Steven to the ground with the butt of the revolver. The man's fall shook the earth, but Sam was already running back to the carriage, helping a shaky Marilee climb out.

  “Darling, what happened? I thought they gave you—”

  “Laudanum, yes. I swallowed some of it, spat the rest out when they weren't looking. I've been awake for a while now.”

  She lowered her eyes, and for a moment, Sam thought she was crying. Then she looked at him, and there was such a fierce devotion there that he was shaken to the core.

  “I knew you would come for me.”

  Sam knew two things at that moment. The first was that he did not deserve Marilee. The second was that he had better find some way to deserve her and fast, because he would be damned if he let her go again.

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  17

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  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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  Marilee woke up in an unfamiliar bed, just as a young woman wearing a veil came in, followed by a servant with a hot bowl of food. For a moment, she had no idea where she was, and then she remembered.

  Sam knew his way around Yorkshire well, and rather than returning to Huntingdon, they had ridden to a small manor by the side of a mirror-calm lake.

  “My lady.”

  The woman in the veil laughed dryly, and Marilee was struck by how young she sounded.

  “Do not worry about that. If you are a friend of Sam's, you must call me Florence.”

  “Then call me Marilee, and let me be your friend for life, as you have given us refuge here.”

  “I am happy to offer refuge to those who need it. It seems as if that is all Wentwood is good for offering these days, but that is neither here nor there.”

  The marchioness oversaw Marilee's breakfast, making sure that everything was just so, and then she excused herself, pleading the need to practice her harp. True to her word, in a few moments, beautiful harp music came from some distant corner of the manor, and Marilee wondered again about the mysteries of this woman.

  I wonder if she thinks she needs to hide her face. She's like a character in a Gothic.

  Before she had much time to think more about the Marchioness of Wentwood, the door opened again, and Sam came in. There were deep lavender circles under his eyes, and he looked as if he had gone several rounds with the devil and barely came out ahead.

  “I like the marchioness. She seems kind.”

  Instead of answering her, Sam came to sit down next to the bed. When she offered him her hand, he took it and looked as if he had no intention of letting it go. She could feel something deep moving inside him, so he waited.

  “When I was nineteen, I fell in love with Arabella Harden.”

  “Arabel- why, that's—”

  “Lady Campion now. The wife of the Marquess of Dinnesmore.”

  Marilee's mind whirled. Lady Campion was a great beauty, but the only thing she was more well known for than her beauty was her cruelty.

  “Sam...”

  “It's a short, if sorry, tale. You can ask me whatever you like at the end. I was nineteen, I fell in love, and she said she loved me as well. Love... I was never used to it. It got inside me like some kind of rabid animal, tearing at me, filling me with a pain so great that the moments of respite looked like heaven.”

  Marilee squeezed his fingers. “That's not what love feels like.”

  “I know that now, but I certainly did not feel it then. Then, I was consumed. I chased after her, and I suppose she was content to be chased. She let me believe... well, I believed that we would marry, and if her father stood up against it, to hell with him.”

  “Did... did he have you arrested?”

  Sam's laugh was a short and ugly thing. “God, no. He had me to dinner. He invited me over after I had spent the better part of six months making a fool of myself. He told me that my pursuit of his daughter had done quite well for them; she was more well-known and sought after than she had been before, but that now that she had a marquess looking at her with an eye toward marriage... I was no longer needed.”

  Sam took a deep breath. “I thought she would at least argue, or comfort me, or even run away with me. I was that foolish. Instead, she sipped her soup and said in a voice that I thought I had loved, that she was grateful, but that I should stop being so foolish.”

  “Oh, Sam.”

  “And then I was done. With her. With Society. I was finished, and perhaps it was boyish, but I came to Yorkshire and was happy in the silence. Until you.”

  Marilee had barely breathed during his story. In return, all she could offer was hers. Sam listened as she told him of why she had run.

  “And my mother died of a broken heart as much as a
nything else, and I knew that if I could only stay independent until the age of twenty-four, that's in March, I would have my title and my birthright. Of course, my stepfather knew it, and while he could not marry me himself, he brought his brother up from God knows where to do the job.”

  Marilee shuddered. “I do not think I would have survived any longer than my mother did.”

  Sam's face hardened. “Believe me when I say they will be called to justice on it. Florence told me an hour ago that the local magistrate had them both in custody. They should swing for all of this.”