And so they had a conservatory even in their London home. She had seen from the outside that a glassed-in room had been added on the south side of the house; that must be it. She had, luckily, an extraordinary sense of direction and headed out and toward the right place.
She passed the card room and another with other gambling opportunities, like vingt-et-un and faro. As she moved through the majestic house the hall became quieter and the people fewer. She felt a trembling in her stomach. Why couldn’t Emily have named the ladies’ withdrawing room as the place for their coze? Her stomach turned as she caught sight of the Vicomte Etienne Marchant, but he was earnestly in conversation with another man and did not appear to notice her. Her heart throbbed in fear at the thought of being caught alone with that seductive scoundrel. Who knows what he could convince a woman to do with those warm caramel-brown eyes and beguiling voice? Not that she had anything to fear from a man like that. He would never look twice at a frozen spinster like herself.
She slipped down the dim hall. Fewer candles. Colder. Her feet, in sandals, were as cold as the marble floor, and she hoped the conservatory was warm and humid as most would be. There! That room at the end must surely be the conservatory. She passed a couple in a dim recess, the woman giggling and the man murmuring in her ear. They would be ruined if anyone saw them, she thought. She would never take a chance with her reputation like that!
Now all she had to do was get into the conservatory and await Emily.
The heavy door squeaked as she opened it. Good. She would hear Emily when she arrived. There were a couple of flambeaux giving off a smoky smell, and the flickering light danced off the glass windows that arced in a semicircle. The high-ceilinged room held a damp and earthy odor from rows of tables with plants crowded upon them. The Duchesse de LaCoursiere was a renowned grower of orchids and there were hundreds of examples of her ability.
May wandered along the rows for a few minutes, twirling her mask as she marveled at the variety of colors, happy to be away from the party so her stomach could settle. Serenity. That was all she wanted, and if Emily could help her settle with her mother once and for all time, then she would return to her home and never come back to London. Her mother loved London and would be glad to stay there all year long, but to May it was a stinking, dirty hole with hardly a soul to recommend it. She longed to go home, home to Lark House, where her horse Cassiopeia was still, home to her gardens and village school and long walks in the countryside. Home.
The door creaked.
Finally! Perhaps Emily would be able to tell her that the plot was over, her mother had been aghast and had called off her dangerous Captain Dempster. Maybe she could be packing the next morning to go home as spring awoke the countryside.
“I’m over here, Emily!” she called out, feeling lighter of heart than she had in months. “What did she say? Did she believe you about that hideous plot to . . . augh!”
A horrible smell assailed her nostrils and as she began to fall she felt a cloth sac being pulled over her head and a cord tightened around her throat, just before she lost consciousness. Her mask fluttered to the ground, unnoticed.
Chapter Eighteen
Etienne had not missed the side glance of the English miss as she slipped down the hall looking oh, so guilty. An assignation? That little one? He had imagined her as a frosty little thing, full of prudish English notions about men and sex. His curiosity was stirred, but the conversation he was having was a vital one and very enlightening. He was afraid that he had been a fool of the first order and that he would have to extricate himself from some very dirty business, business he had not liked from the beginning.
When he finally could get away from his informant, Lady Grishelda May van Hoffen, as she had been introduced to him, had been gone a full ten minutes or more. Only one room past him would be any good for an assignation and that was the conservatory, that infamously dark choice for a rendezvous d’amour. He had seen no young man slip down the hall after her, looking guilty and excité, but maybe there was another way into the conservatoire. Perhaps he should follow the miss, in case she got in a little more deeply than she knew.
She was, after all, a good friend of Emily’s, and any turn he could serve Emily that might bring her to his bed was worth doing. He still had hope of success, even though she had not been as encouraging as he would have hoped. He was patient, and he believed that she would be well worth the wait, though time was growing short. It might be necessary for him to disappear for a while very soon now and he did so wish to bed his delectable heart’s delight before he left.
The door creaked open as he pushed on it. He strolled in, intending to casually interrupt the English miss, who might not realize what danger lay in a secret rendezvous. She had not, he thought, the experience in such matters. He bent over and picked up from the floor a white satin mask on a beribboned handle. What was it doing there? A sharp chemical smell was in the air and he heard a scuffle and the sound of an oath, in a brutish English voice—“bitch” hissed through the air, and the sound of dragging, away from him, on the other side of the tables toward the high glass windows.
What was this? He followed the sounds, all of his senses alert. Tiens, there was something! A white figure was being dragged out a door that opened onto a terrace, and he knew that the young lady wore a white dress that evening. “Arrêtez, vilain!” he shouted, lapsing into French in his agitation.
“Shite, we bin caught, cap’n!”
Etienne tossed the mask aside, flung his cape over his shoulder and raced after the two men who dragged the English miss. It was execrable that a man would treat a woman that way, and he would stop it or die trying!
• • •
“Have you seen her, Less? She was wearing a plain white dress and a red ribbon around her throat. She had a white satin mask.”
“I have not, my dear. I’ll take a look around and ask some friends if they have seen her,” Less said, turning to make his way through the crowd.
“Discreetly, though, discreetly! With a mother like hers people are always looking to attach scandal to the daughter.”
Less glanced back at Emily, looking mildly offended. “My dear, when have you known me to be anything but discreet?”
She smiled her apology and he disappeared into the crowd. It was annoying in the extreme, Emily thought. The girl had clearly wanted to talk to her about something, had given her that expressive, questioning look, and Emily had denied her next dance partner just so she could go to Grishelda, or rather May; she must think of her as May. And now she was nowhere to be found and Emily was hot and exhausted from searching.
There, finally, was Lady van Hoffen! Emily gazed at her with exasperation. She had been trying to corner the woman for an hour but she was always surrounded, always busy. At least she hadn’t worn the outrageous and indecent costume she had threatened to. She had dressed as a pre-Terror French aristocrat, with a gray powdered wig, heavily leaded face and bosom, and a multiplicity of patches, some low on her breasts. The irony of May’s costume was complete.
She started toward her. Lady van Hoffen was gabbling about something, her blue eyes wide and her hands flailing. Emily moved closer.
“I told her he wasn’t good enough for her but she has defied me and run off! That old roué! She was determined to have him; said he wouldn’t bother her much in bed and had pots of money. What does a mother know, after all! I’ve been keeping my eye on her but the little harlot has slipped off and is likely on her way to Gretna by now with the old moneybags.”
Emily drew back, an inarticulate sound of fear in her throat all she could make. What was the woman talking about? What had happened? A strong hand steadied her and she turned to find Sedgely at her elbow.
“Baxter!” she gasped, grasping his strong arm as a prop. Her legs felt weak. “It’s not true! And if she’s saying it now, it must mean—oh, God!—it means Grishelda . . . May . . . has been abducted!” Her voice had risen and hysteria threatened to overwhelm her, but B
axter pulled her aside from the crowd gathered around Lady van Hoffen.
He shook her and stooped, gazing directly into her eyes. “What are you talking about, Em? What’s going on?”
She explained, falling over her words in her attempt to be quick and brief. She wanted to fly from the place and find May! It was all her fault; if she had only taken her seriously earlier.
Sedgely’s mind raced. The girl was in trouble, that was definite. If Lady van Hoffen felt secure enough to announce a runaway then the trap had been sprung, and the poor girl was caught. He glanced down at Emily. Her rosy cheeks had paled to white and her lips were tight with fear. She stared up at him, tears trembling in the corners of her huge brown eyes. “Baxter, what shall we do?”
“Do not fear, my love, we will find her.”
“But we must do something now! Maisie van Hoffen is ruining the girl’s reputation with this story of her running away. If we speak up—”
“No! That will not serve. You know what people will say; even though the fault is not hers, if she has been abducted they will say that she is soiled goods now. Let us go carefully. We may be able to use our inside knowledge of this offense to force Lady van Hoffen to aid us. First we must try to find Lady May, and we must go immediately. I have my carriage here for once, so we will find out what we can and retrieve the poor girl.”
Emily was so grateful for Baxter’s strength and determination over the next hour. Less had found a man who had seen a young woman who fit Lady Grishelda May van Hoffen’s description strolling down the hall toward the conservatory. That same man claimed to have seen Etienne Marchant follow her a few minutes later. Baxter’s face became darker and grimmer and his eyes glittered obsidian in the dim light of the carriage house as a young stable hand confirmed that two men had had a carriage parked behind the conservatory. They left in a hurry and then the Vicomte Etienne Marchant, whom the stable hand knew because he was an occasional visitor to the Duc de LaCoursiere’s household, ordered his horse, a coal black stallion, hurriedly and flew from the stable as if on wings.
“What does it mean?” Emily asked as Baxter helped her into his carriage.
“I’m not sure,” her husband said. “But I very much fear that he is mixed up in this somehow.”
They left the city, the full of the moon lighting the way. Emily sat in silence, tears coursing down her cheeks. May had come to her for help but she had not taken her seriously enough until it was too late. Dempster had her and intended to take her innocence in a hideous, violent way. How could she have failed her friend so?
She was ashamed, too, that she had fallen apart in the moment when action was needed. Thank God for Baxter’s stolid presence and vigorous response to disaster. No wonder the country had been able to rely on him in its hour of need, just as she did. She was proud of her husband and humbled that he would still respond to her plea for help. Though to be fair Baxter was a gentleman, and no gentleman worthy of the appellation would have failed poor May at such a time. They had left Less to do what he did best, smooth over the social implications by making light of it and suggesting that it was likely nothing more than an error or lark.
He had sworn he would find a way to shut Lady van Hoffen’s mouth, too, once he learned the truth of the affair.
They stopped at every inn on the most likely road out of town. Saunders had a hunting box near Chelmsford, and Baxter thought that would be the most likely place where they would take the young woman. They took Whitechapel Road out of London. It was slow going because they weren’t sure they were on the right trail. Finally, after a couple of hours of riding and stopping at numerous inns, a stable hand at one of them confirmed that he had seen the carriage, which had only stopped for a few minutes. After it followed a “Frenchie in fancy dress,” as one man put it, on a large black stallion. That must be Etienne, Baxter and Emily agreed, and so they drove on.
Emily was puzzled. She could not believe that Etienne was mixed up in the abduction plot, but what other explanation was there for his having followed her into the conservatory, where she had been lured with a note, as questioning of the LaCoursiere staff had revealed?
“Baxter, I am so afraid for her,” Emily said as the carriage rumbled on its way again. In the dark she felt herself pulled against her husband’s side, his strong arm holding her firmly to him.
“We’ll find her, Em, and we’ll take care of things. Don’t borrow trouble. The important thing is to find her before she is forced into marriage.”
“But what if . . . what if that dreadful captain has r—”
“Em, we will find her! With God’s grace it will be in time. If not, then we will help her deal with the consequences, no matter what. I swear to you that we will handle this together and help the girl get past this dreadful night.”
• • •
Etienne cursed the time it had taken him to go to the stable, make the sleepy stable hand know which horse was his and that he needed it vite. At least all of the duc’s staff was French, so his flurry of French phrases was comprehended and acted upon more rapidly than if he had spoken English, but still he had lost time. He could not gallop the whole way or it would be the death of Théron, his stallion, and he felt compelled to at least water his horse at the inn, where he had learned that he was on the right road and the carriage was still about fifteen minutes ahead of him. That meant that he had made up some time on his steed, and he hoped to overtake them still.
But he was experiencing misgivings. He had instructed the stable hand to tell Lady Emily Sedgely what had happened, but the fellow was so slow and he had no time to explain more correctly if he meant to catch up to the bastards who had taken the English miss. Would anyone know what had happened?
Ah, but he would enjoy catching the villains and shoving their filthy teeth into the backs of their throats! What did they intend for that poor girl, one who was so shy she could not meet his eyes when they had been introduced? Dieu, but he wished he was not wearing this foolish costume. But at the very least he had a saber, that must be accounted a good thing when one was about to face dirty English knaves. He would give them a taste of his steel, and then the flavor of his boot. Indeed he would, and would enjoy it.
• • •
Emily stood in the road shaking and crying. Baxter held her tightly in his arms.
“Thank God you are not more than shaken up, my love,” he said, unconsciously falling into the form of address he had used through their marriage. It had been a frightening few minutes when their carriage had been run off the road by a passing mail coach. It now sat mired in muck in the drainage ditch beside the road, up to the axle in mud from the recent rains. He had lifted Emily out and carried her up to the road, where she stood quivering from the ordeal.
He had cursed his groom soundly, but now there was nothing to do but take one of the carriage horses and ride to the nearest inn, which he thought was a couple of miles up the road. As he mounted he explained that he would come back for Emily with the inn carriage.
“No!” she said, folding her arms under her bosom. “I will not be left alone on this dreary road, Baxter, to await your return!
She made an arresting sight on a dark road, the faint moonlight touching her dark hair with gold, her simple peasant dress enhancing her rounded, voluptuous figure. He licked his dry lips. He had shrugged off his domino long ago and was dressed as he always was, and with her dressed in her peasant-girl garb it reminded him once again of his first meeting with the girl he had assumed was a village wench.
“Then you will have to ride with me,” he said, his eyes glittering dangerously in the moonlight. “I will not leave my driver without at least one horse, in case he runs into trouble. Jarvis, help Lady Sedgely up, will you?”
Settled sideways in front of him, her arms around his waist, he started the short ride into the village just up the road. Her hair, lightly perfumed with her lilac scent, tickled his nose, and the warmth of her soft bottom pressed against his groin was delectably erotic. How
could he be thinking about sex when a girl’s virtue, if not her life, was at stake? But he was doing all he could for Lady Grishelda, and he would be doing the same whether he was thinking about his wife’s charms or not.
The ride was short and Emily was drowsy; he kissed her ear before waking her to dismount. The inn was not one that he would have stopped at if he had had a choice. He tried to hire a carriage, but there was not one available. He sent a stable hand back to help Jarvis, but even if they were successful in getting the carriage out of the ditch and on the road, and there was miraculously no damage, they would not be able to go anywhere until the next morning. They could not ride a carriage horse bareback through the countryside.
“May we have two rooms, then,” he said wearily. He felt a failure, but there really seemed no option. Morning’s light would see his carriage repaired, for there was bound to be some damage from the precipitous lurch into the ditch, and they could resume their search for the unfortunate Lady Grishelda. With any luck her captors would not be in a rush. They would not think themselves followed because of Lady van Hoffen’s story of her daughter as a runaway bride.
“Sorry, milord, but there’s only the one room left in the ’ole inn.” The innkeeper’s wife, roused from her bed, curtseyed as she said this.
“We’ll take it,” he said.
Emily glanced up at him, tears forming in her eyes. “Baxter . . . poor Grishelda!”
“There is nothing we can do, my love. We must wait until morning light and hope that her captors will do the same.” He pulled her to him and held her as she wept against this chest. He saw the innkeeper’s wife look over Emily’s attire with a skeptical eye. He would not explain. If they wanted to think he was tumbling some village peasant girl, he would not argue. No one would think the worse of him for doing what the nobility had done for centuries. He should have just claimed a room for them both as husband and wife from the beginning.
Married to a Rogue Page 18
