In Pursuit Of Eliza Cynster

by Stephanie Laurens

  In that, he and Humphrey were two peas in a pod, both perfectly content to sit in the massive twin libraries — one each — in the home they shared in Montrose Place in London and pore over one or another ancient tome. The only lure guaranteed to tease either of them out of their scholarly seclusion was the prospect of discovering some unknown treasure.

  Scholars such as they lived for such moments. The thrill of identifying some ancient, long-lost text was a drug like no other, one to which they were, as a species, addicted beyond recall.

  It was just such a lure that had drawn him all the way into the far reaches of Northumberland to Wolverstone Castle, the home of Royce Varisey, Duke of Wolverstone, and his duchess, Minerva. Royce and Minerva were close friends of Leonora and her husband, Tristan Wemyss, Viscount Trentham; over the years, Jeremy had come to know the ducal couple quite well. Consequently, when Royce had been cataloguing his late father’s massive library and had discovered an ancient book of hieroglyphics, it had been to Jeremy he’d turned for an opinion.

  Grinning to himself, Jeremy flicked the reins and sent Jasper the Black pacing on. His luck had been in; Royce’s book had been a fantastic find, a long-thought-to-be-lost Sumerian text. Jeremy couldn’t wait to tell Humphrey about it, and he was equally keen to get started on compiling a lecture for The Royal Society from the copious notes he’d made. His conclusions would cause quite a stir.

  Expectant pleasure a warmth in his veins, his thoughts focused ahead, throwing up a mental picture of his library, of his home.

  The peace of it, the comfort and quiet of it.

  The emptiness.

  Sobering, he was tempted to push the thought aside, to bury it as he usually did, but … he was in the middle of nowhere with nothing else vying for his mind. Perhaps it was time he dealt with the problem.

  He wasn’t sure when or why the restless undercurrent of dissatisfaction had started. It had nothing to do with his work — the outlook there was positively glowing. He still felt riveted by his chosen profession, still as absorbed as ever by his longtime interest, his chosen field.

  The restlessness had nothing to do with hieroglyphics.

  The unwanted uneasiness came from inside him, a burgeoning, welling, unsettling feeling that he’d missed something vital, that he’d somehow failed.

  Not in work, but in life.

  Over the two weeks he’d spent at Wolverstone, the feeling had only intensified; indeed, in one way, it had come to a head.

  Unexpectedly, it had been Minerva, Wolverstone’s ever-gracious wife, who had forced him to see the truth of it. Who, with her parting words, had forced him to face what he had, for quite some time, been avoiding focusing on.

  Family. Children. His future.

  While at Wolverstone, he’d seen and observed what could be along those lines, had been surrounded by the reality.

  Growing up without his parents, with only Humphrey — already a reclusive widower — and Leonora around him through his formative years, he’d never been exposed to a large, boisterous brood, to the warmth, the charm, and that other level of comfort. To the fundamental difference that made a house a home.

  The house he shared with Humphrey was just that, a house.

  It lacked the essential elements to transform it into a home.

  He hadn’t thought it mattered, not to him or to Humphrey.

  In that he’d been wrong, at least with respect to himself. That error, and his consequent lack and refusal to pay attention and do something about it, was what lay beneath his restlessness, what drove it and, increasingly, gave it teeth.

  Minerva’s parting words had been, “You’re going to have to do something soon, dear Jeremy, or you’ll wake up one morning a lonely old man.”

  Her eyes had been kindly and understanding.

  Her words had chilled him to the bone.

  She’d put her delicate finger on the crux of what, he now recognized, was his deepest fear.

  Leonora had found Tristan, and Tristan had found her, and they, like Royce and Minerva, had made their own family, their warm and boisterous brood.

  He had his books, but as Minerva had intimated, they wouldn’t keep him warm through the years ahead. Most especially through those years after Humphrey, already old and frail, passed on. Would he then regret that he hadn’t bothered to make the time to find a lady of his own to share his life, to have children like his nephews and nieces? To do what was necessary to hear children’s voices, their laughter, rolling down the corridors, to have children of his own to watch and see grow.

  To have a son to whom he could pass on his own knowledge, his accumulated wisdom, as he’d seen Royce doing with his eldest boys. Perhaps to have a son, or even a daughter, with whom he could share the fascination of ancient writings, as Humphrey had with him.

  He’d long ago assumed he’d never want such things, yet now …

  He was already thirty-seven, a fact Minerva knew, no doubt prompting her remark, although with his lean frame, which had only truly filled out in his thirties, he was thought by most to be younger. Yet there was no denying the truth of her observation; if he wanted a family like hers and Royce’s, like Leonora’s and Tristan’s, then he needed to do something about it.

  Soon.

  He’d whisked through the hamlet of Rayless; a sign proclaimed that Raechester lay ahead. He had an hour of driving before him with nothing to claim his attention; he might as well use the time.

  And decide what he wanted.

  That took two seconds — he wanted a family like his brother-in-law had. Like Royce had. The details were there, glowing in his mind.

  Next: How to get it?

  Obviously he needed a wife.

  How to get her?

  His mind, widely proclaimed to be brilliant and incisive, stalled at that point.

  So he did what any academic would do and rephrased the question. What sort of wife did he want, did he need, in order to lead to his optimal outcome?

  That was easier to define. The wife he wanted and needed would necessarily be quiet, reserved, if not precisely self-effacing then at least of the sort who wouldn’t take umbrage when he spent days with his nose buried in some book. She would be content to manage his household and bear and care for any children they might be blessed with. He could imagine that she might be shy, relatively reticent — a meek, mild, accommodating lady who would not seek to interfere with his scholarly pursuits, let alone distract him from them.

  Slowing to trot through the tiny village of Raechester, he grimaced. His previous encounters with the fairer sex had left him very aware that such a paragon wouldn’t be easy to find. Ladies, certainly all those he’d ever dallied with, liked attention. That issue, of all others, was the one that invariably led to him and them parting company.

  That said, he had nothing against women per se; some, like the Cynster twins, Amanda and Amelia, he found quite entertaining. In earlier years, he’d indulged in various encounters with certain bored matrons of the ton, followed by three longer affairs, but ultimately he’d found himself both bored and resentful of the increasing demands of the ladies involved, so he had, as gently as possible, ended the liaisons.

  Over recent years, he’d clung to his recluse’s shield and kept his distance from all females, deeming any further dalliance likely to be more trouble than it was worth. Leonora had prodded him, insisting that his past experiences simply meant that he hadn’t yet met the lady who, to him, would be worth the trouble, would be worth putting himself out to engage with.

  Logically he had to concede the point, but he continued to have severe doubts that such a lady might exist, much less that she would cross his path.

  Intellectually, he was both wary and distantly dismissive of ladies. Wary because he occasionally wondered if they, operating on some different plane of rationality, actually knew more than he, at least about social subjects. Distantly dismissive because, when it came to reason and logic, he’d never met any whose abilities commanded his respect.r />
  Admittedly, only a small cohort of gentlemen made that grade either.

  Nevertheless, now that he’d decided — had he? Yes, he rather thought he had — to find himself a wife, he was going to have to … how would Tristan and his Bastion Club colleagues phrase it?… devise a campaign to achieve his goal.

  His goal being to find, woo, and secure the hand of a lady of impeccable character with all the characteristics he’d described.

  It wouldn’t hurt if she was passably pretty, and of similar social station, too; he would be no help if the poor woman needed guidance in such complicated matters as who had precedence entering a room.

  So, campaign goal in place, how to move toward it? His first step had to be to locate a suitable candidate.

  Leonora would help in a heartbeat if he asked her.

  If he did … the old biddies, Tristan’s pack of elderly female relatives, would instantly leap into the fray, too. Nothing he, Leonora, or Tristan might say or do would be able to avoid that — and the likely subsequent catastrophe; while infinitely well-meaning, the old ladies had very definite ideas and were as bossy as they came.

  So … if he couldn’t ask Leonora for help, then he couldn’t ask any female for help. He knew that much. Which left him with the males — Tristan and his erstwhile colleagues, all now good friends, including Royce.

  He tried to imagine any help they might give, but other than their giving him tactical advice — which he’d already had over the years from them — he couldn’t see them helping him identify and meet his specific young lady; they were all married, and, as he did, avoided society as much as they could. So no help there.

  Reaching deeper into his acquaintance, there were several unmarried gentlemen he knew through his connection with the Cynsters, yet from their occasional meetings he’d got the impression that they, too, kept society — at least those circles in which unmarried young ladies swarmed — at a distance.

  Hmm. Considering the issue more broadly, it appeared that all the gentlemen he knew, or had any affinity with, avoided the wider company of young ladies … until they needed to find one to marry.

  He frowned. Slowing Jasper, he trotted into Knowesgate; immediately they were past the small knot of cottages, he eased the reins and let Jasper run.

  There had to be someone he could appeal to for assistance in locating his necessary wife. The idea of finding her on his own … he wouldn’t know where to start.

  The thought of Almack’s was enough to put him off the project altogether … so there had to be some other way.

  A mile further on, he still hadn’t thought of any useful option. He passed the lane that led to the hamlet of Kirkwhelpington and rattled on around a long, wide curve, keeping Jasper to a spanking pace.

  A coach, the first he’d sighted that day, appeared ahead, rumbling steadily toward him around the curve.

  “Damn.” The road wasn’t a major highway, and that stretch was too narrow to permit two carriages to pass at a clip.

  Reining Jasper in, he slowed the curricle until it was rolling slowly, the horse at a walk. The coach slowed, too. Carefully angling his curricle’s off-side wheel onto the verge, Jeremy raised a hand in brief acknowledgment to the coachman as the man edged his team as far as he dared the other way.

  Jeremy was concentrating, managing the reins and watching like a hawk to ensure the coach’s wheels and his curricle’s wheels slid past without touching, when a thump on the coach’s window made him look up —

  Into a pale face. A woman’s face.

  Distressed, her eyes wide, she’d struck the window with her open palms.

  He saw her lips move — distantly heard her scream.

  Male hands grabbed her shoulders and she was hauled abruptly back.

  Then the coach was past, and the road ahead lay empty.

  Jasper, wanting to run, tugged at the reins.

  Still stunned, his mind replaying what he’d seen, Jeremy absentmindedly lowered his hands, letting the black start trotting.

  Then he blinked, turned his head, and glanced back at the coach.

  It was rolling at speed again, but not rushing or racing, just steadily rumbling along at the same pace as when he’d first seen it.

  Half a minute later, the coach rounded the curve and passed out of sight.

  Facing forward, Jeremy let Jasper continue trotting.

  While his mind swiftly sorted and compared.

  He was an expert in ancient hieroglyphics, with a steel trap of a memory for such things. Faces were very like hieroglyphics, and he knew he’d seen that face before.

  But where? He didn’t know anyone in the area, other than the household at Wolverstone …

  London. In some ballroom. Several years ago.

  The scene came back to him in a rush.

  “Eliza Cynster.”

  Even as he said her name, another memory was pouring through him — of Royce reading a letter he’d received from Devil Cynster on the day Jeremy had arrived at Wolverstone, about the foiled kidnapping of Heather Cynster and the belief that her sisters were still under threat ….

  “Hell!” Jeremy hauled on the reins, halting Jasper.

  Shocked, he stared down the road.

  Heather Cynster had been taken by her captors into Scotland. The coach behind him was heading for the Scottish border.

  And he’d made out the single word Eliza had screamed.

  Help!

  She’d been kidnapped, too.

  Eliza slumped back into the corner of the coach into which Scrope had flung her. He’d snarled at her but then had quickly regained his composure, his previous stoic and stony expression cloaking the turmoil she’d provoked.

  Genevieve had hissed at her, too. Talonlike fingers locked about Eliza’s wrist, the nurse held on to her as if she might bolt.

  Small hope of that.

  Standing over her, keeping his balance with one hand on the coach’s ceiling, Scrope stared coldly down at her, then reached up, opened the hatch in the roof, and spoke upward. “That curricle that just passed us — did the driver stop?”

  After a moment, the coachman replied, “No. Glanced back once, puzzledlike, but then went on. Why?”

  Scrope glanced at Eliza. “Our precious baggage tried to attract his attention. You’re sure he isn’t following?”

  A moment passed. “There’s no one behind us.”

  “Good.” Scrope closed the hatch. Weaving slightly with the coach’s motion, he stared down at Eliza.

  She stared back, surprised to discover she felt no real fear. She’d done what she’d had to — and no longer had sufficient strength to do very much at all, even to be properly afraid.

  Eventually, Scrope shifted and sat again opposite her. “As you’ve just demonstrated, there’s no point in trying to create a scene — nothing comes of it, even if you do. So.” He eyed her coldly, measuringly. “Do we have to tie you up and tell our tale at our next stop, or will you behave?”

  Recalling the tack Heather had taken with her captors, letting them believe she was helpless and unable to accomplish anything on her own, Eliza let her muscles slacken in not entirely assumed defeat. “Clearly there’s no hope, so I may as well behave.”

  As long as it suited her.

  She’d allowed the weakness stealing over her, through her, to color her voice. She wasn’t surprised when Scrope, after considering her for a long moment, nodded. He looked at Genevieve. “Release her. But if she shows any further sign of making our life difficult, we’ll bind and gag her.”

  With a black look for Eliza, Genevieve unlocked her hold on Eliza’s wrist and, with a muted humph, settled back in her seat.

  The three of them went back to what they’d been doing before the drama — before she’d seen Jeremy Carling driving past.

  Eliza knew she should have felt wretchedly disappointed, but summoning the strength even for that was a struggle. She’d assumed her ability to think had meant the laudanum had worn off. She’d thought she’
d marshaled her strength, that she’d recovered and gathered enough of that commodity to, when and if her moment came, make a determined show, enough to convince whoever went by to assist her.

  Admittedly, she’d had little hope of seeing anyone who might help, but then, wonder of wonders, she’d seen a familiar face.

  She hadn’t stopped to consider further but had flung herself at the window. She’d bashed the glass and screamed for help …

  The instant she’d moved, her head had spun. But, desperate, she’d poured every ounce of strength and determination into that moment, into doing all she possibly could.

  Now she felt drained. Literally wrung out.

  And, it seemed, it had all been for nought.

  Jeremy Carling. Of all the gentlemen fate might have sent her way, why had it had to have been him?

  He was a scholar, a dreamer, a certified genius, but standoffish, with a marked disinterest in social life; he was so absentminded she seriously doubted he would remember her name.

  He might not even have recognized her enough to register that he knew her.

  That was a distinct possibility. Although she’d been introduced to him formally at a ball several years ago, and had seen him several times in family drawing rooms since, she’d barely exchanged two words with him — and those had been at that first meeting years ago, when he’d appeared to be so elsewhere she’d quickly found some polite reason to quit the group he’d been with.

  Still, there was nothing else she could have done; for good or ill, she’d had to grasp the opportunity when it had offered.

  She heaved a deep, despondent sigh, uncaring if the other two heard. It would only add to the image of a beaten, helpless female … she wasn’t quite that, but at that moment she felt close to it.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to relax, to marshal her strength and determination again.

  In her mind, a faint hope flickered.

  She had, after all, recognized Jeremy Carling, so he, in turn, might — just might — have recognized her.

  It was a slim hope, but it was the only sliver of hope she had. In her present dejected and worn-out state, she had to cling to whatever she could.