The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances

by Cerise DeLand

  That explanation alone seared Jack’s mind. “What the hell?” He worried as he read the note once, then again.

  The script was scribbled, the penmanship ugly. The words uglier.

  “You have my debts, but you do not have Emma. We do.”

  Chapter Nine

  Two evenings later, Jack slid from his weary horse in front of Durham Manor and stumbled into his foyer. Exhausted, he’d ridden north like the wind. He was half out of his mind with worry for his wife.

  As Simmons pushed a whisky into his hand, Cook bustled to the kitchen to warm soup and bread for him. Jack sank into the hall chair and asked about Emma. “When did she disappear? Have you found anything of hers, here or—?”

  “Milord, you know she’s gone?”

  Jack rubbed his forehead, the pain in his head as big as the one in his heart. “I do. I’ve had a note. She’s been abducted.”

  “Abducted! I told Cook she would not run away. I knew your wife was happy here.”

  Nodding, grateful for his servant’s appreciation of Emma’s true character, Jack drank a hefty draught of a strong Scots brew. “When did she go missing?”

  “Not certain, my lord. I am beside myself with where she could’ve gone! Out she went to the village, each day after you and his lordship went to London. She’d take a basket of breads and jellies from the kitchen, herbs, too, and out she would light.”

  “Why in hell would she…?” Jack began, then realized he knew her thinking. She was going down to the cottages of the tenants and taking them food and seeing to their needs. Just as she wished to help orphans, her hope to aid other disadvantaged had led her to this end.

  “She’d go for hours. Come home at suppertime, milord. But then the third day, she didn’t come home. Do you know what happened to her?”

  “I’m not certain. But I have a few suspicions of where she might be.” Two places Trayne owned, one not far from here seemed more probable. “Tell one of the footmen to go fetch the sheriff in Durham. I need his help. Tell him to bring a few men with him, too. I’ll pay for their services.”

  “That I will, milord. Come now, eat and we’ll get a bath sent up to your chamber.”

  But liquor and food did not take the more vital hunger from Jack’s heart. And hot water only brought back memories of sharing a bath with his wife.

  By the time the sheriff and three villagers appeared in the front hall, Jack was freshly bathed and attired, ready to lead them on the thirty-mile journey to Trayne’s grandmother’s cottage near the village of Stanley. Now, eight o’clock at night, the trip would take at least two hours, maybe more.

  The sheriff, a kindly man whom Jack had known since a boy, was aghast at the tale of abduction of his wife. “I say, milord,” Howard Rufus exclaimed, arms akimbo in Jack’s drawing room, “we’ll catch this bastard. Cut off his balls for you.”

  Jack winced. “I may beat you to the honor, Rufus.” And if he has hurt my Emma, if he has done more than that, I will murder him outright. “More whisky, men, before we go?”

  “No, milord,” the three replied in turn.

  The biggest of them, the Durham smithy, grinned with evil purpose. “If I have more of that, good sir, I’ll not be riding straight.”

  “I tell you, Mark,” Jack told the giant whose hands measured two of Jack’s, “when we return with my wife, I’m giving all three of you the wealth of my cellars for the next year.”

  “Ah, milord, what your new wife was doing for us was right enough to tell us who she is and what she be about,” Mark Smith replied. “She’s a lady, all right. Me wife told me so. We’ll get this bastard who put his hands on her and make him wish he never set foot in Durham.”

  “Here, here,” Jack clinked glasses with each man and within minutes, they were out the door and on the road, the late March winds cutting through their coats like chilling knives.

  ****

  Emma sat in a corner of the rough stone cottage, her supper, an unsavoury mutton stew rumbling in her stomach, her hands tied to a most uncomfortable reed chair. Benjamin Trayne had had the decency to allow her privacy to attend to delicate matters, removing the bands to her ankles with which he hobbled her. But for most of the past three days, Emma had sat with her arms bound loosely. At night, Trayne tied her to the posts of the tiny wooden bed. With occasional pins and needles from her confinement, she grew testy and challenged him. Short of provoking him to violence, she antagonized him with questions he never answered about his plans for her future. Baiting Trayne kept her from a more agonizing habit of pondering what her husband was doing and how he’d learned she was gone. Over that, she argued with herself mightily.

  Would he think I have left him?

  How could he? Not after the intensity of the intimacies they’d shared.

  But he’s not a man to value women. Nor even trust them.

  Why wouldn’t he trust her?

  Why, indeed. What had she done for him, except offer him money he would not take? Promise him she would not bother him, but leave him once their vows were said and he’d taken her virtue?

  Trayne offered no insight into his plans, either. He, deluded man that he was, remained under the illusion that she and Jack were not married. The fact that she had no wedding ring confirmed his conclusion. Indeed, her wedding ring sat atop the dressing table in Jack’s bedroom. She’d placed it there that last morning before going down to the village, fearful she would lose the ill-fitting ring while on her errands.

  “And you’d not have a license, either,” he said, leaning over her that first evening he’d abducted her from the Durham forest road. “That old vicar in Durham is a surly cuss. He’d not move his carcass for anyone, especially a reprobate like Jack Stanhope.” Trayne had laughed in her face, his rancid breath forcing her to wince and turn away. She did not disabuse him of the fact that the Durham vicar was a young man now and whatever had happened to the older one he referenced, well, she was not about to lead him down that path of discovery, was she?

  She recoiled at the image of what Jack would do when he returned home to find her missing, the ring upon the table and she gone without explanation.

  Oh, Jack. How well do you know me? Would you think me capable of that?

  “What do you intend to do with me, Benjamin? I cannot continue to live like this. Trussed like a chicken, I grow weary and weak.”

  “Be quiet. You’ll know soon enough what we plan. Daniel will come soon.”

  “Daniel conspired with you to do this to me?”

  “Who else?” He gloated.

  “Who else would collaborate with the likes of you?”

  He sneered and flexed his fingers in a menacing gesture. “I should shut you up.”

  “Touch me and you never will again.”

  “You’ll not be so high and mighty if I take you here and now.” His blue eyes narrowed as they danced over her body. He leaned over her once more, his weasel face and rodent’s breath making her go still with repulsion. “Did Stanhope have you?”

  If she said yes, Trayne might recoil. Or not. She dared not chance it. Rather, an opportunity might come to escape him. It must. Realizing now she should not test his mettle, she held her tongue and glared at him.

  He came closer, his nostrils flaring. “You don’t smell too grand, my pernickety lady. Quite a comeuppance, is it not, to be at a man’s mercy?” He licked her earlobe.

  She shivered and swallowed a retort.

  He grabbed her hair, pulled back her head and smashed his mouth on hers.

  She bit him.

  “You bitch!” He reared back, his lower lip bleeding. He staunched it, staring at his fingers.

  Outside, an owl hooted.

  A dog barked.

  Trayne stepped backward and picked up his musket against the far wall. “Don’t worry. I will return to teach you manners.”

  The door slammed and she groaned in fear and frustration. What to do? What to do?

  She had long ago noted where he kept the kitchen knife.
Seizing upon his absence, she rose in a half crouch to jump with the damn chair behind her toward the table where the big butcher knife lay. She stood aside the table and stared at it. How to get it in her hand? It was too far into the middle of the table for her hand to reach.

  She stood, her legs aching with the effort, and stretched toward the center. She whimpered in frustration. She stretched again, hooking her chin over the knife handle and pushing it toward her, splinters from the rough wood digging into her skin.

  At the edge of the table, she spun and grasped the handle. Success had her breathing hard in triumph.

  Outside, a dog was yapping wildly.

  Oh god. Let him attack Trayne. Please.

  Concentrating on grasping the knife with the cutting edge just so, she twirled it toward her. If she could just get the blade to the right angle, she might be able to saw the rope off her wrist and…

  The door flung open and banged against the hinges.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Trayne screamed at her. But instead of rushing forward to examine her, he turned and slammed the door behind him. He scrambled to push a beam into the bar and secure the door from any intruder. But someone pushed and shoved against the wooden mass and Trayne’s efforts to shoot home the beam were in vain.

  The door banged open, bouncing off the far wall.

  Trayne backed up toward her. “Get away from me! Get out!”

  He lifted the gun and took aim.

  But he howled in pain as she sank the knife into his buttock. And removed it and struck again!

  He jumped forward.

  Right into the arms of her husband.

  “Hello, darling!” Jack grinned at her as he passed Trayne from his arms to that of another burly creature. “Take this animal away, Sheriff.” Jack came toward her, saw the bloody blade and grimaced. “Taking up carving, are you, sweetheart?”

  “Only rump roasts, Jack,” she got out with a shot of humor that surprised her, considering the terror that had her trembling.

  Grinning, Jack pried the knife from her stiff fingers and kneeled before her to untie her ropes. Rubbing her wrists, he frowned and dropped kisses to her bruised flesh. She gasped and rose up to curl her arms around his shoulders and cling to him.

  He stroked her back, the thud of his heart a fierce pounding against her chest. “Are you well? Did you hurt you?” He brushed her hair from her face and ran his hands over her shoulders and arms. “Let me see you.”

  Tears of happiness dribbled down her cheeks. “I’m stiff and sore. But he never hurt me. He wanted to. Said he would. But didn’t.” From the corner of her eye, she noted how three men tied the hands of Benjamin Trayne. “Oh, Jack! How did you find me?”

  He rocked her in his embrace. “A short story I will gladly tell you. Shall I recount it as we go home?”

  ****

  Emma drank tea on the veranda outside her bedroom and watched the swallows dance in the trees. Spring came to the north of England now that early April had arrived. The air seemed fresh and gentle breezes wafted over her face as she took another sip.

  She inhaled the fragrances of new grass and flower buds. Her body, thankfully, was stronger, recovering from the bondage and confinement that the ogre Benjamin Trayne had imposed upon her for nigh unto three days and four nights.

  That nightmare had ended more than ten days ago and here, in her husband’s home, she had recovered much of her physical strength. But her heart was sore.

  Though Jack had been loving and solicitous, demanding that they not ride home that night but take a room in an inn close by and then hiring a coach the next day to drive her back to Durham Manor, she was now alone. Jack, seeing to her comfort with his staff constantly fluttering about her, had demanded she sleep in her own bedroom alone. Furthermore, he had ordered her to remain in bed for at least two full days. She had balked and complained of his orders, even secretly arising to stretch her limbs in joyous abandon and scurrying back to bed whenever he poked his head in her door. Then, just as he had surprised her when he burst through Trayne’s cottage door in Stanley, he shocked her when he left her a note one morning.

  “Gone to London, darling. Sorry, but I did not want to wake you before I left. And I must be off quickly. Eat well and stay in bed!”

  For what she now wanted from him, this had been a miserable note to receive.

  She had not remained in bed. Indeed out of pique, she had taken to long walks in the gardens. She no longer had Trayne to fear. The sheriff had seen to that man’s incarceration for abducting her. Jack told her, too, that Trayne would come before a judge soon to hear his case. Her stepfather, Pinrose, whose note to Jack was as good as an admission of complicity in her abduction, would face criminal charges in London as well.

  Emma told herself she ought to be satisfied with those events. Still, she wanted more. She wanted Jack.

  And she worried, now that she had time and occasion, that her original offer to him was now inadequate to the totality of all that she did desire from him.

  And how to tell him, how to ask for more when he remained in London?

  She had asked Simmons if he knew why his master had gone. “His lordship does not confide his personal issues with me, my lady.”

  Emma contemplated her options. What was best to do now? With Jack away and only a little more than a month gone since she first waylaid him in front of White’s, she had two more months’ time before she could return to speak to her solicitors and fulfill the terms of her father’s will. Gaining her inheritance and her freedom seemed like the best course of action, whether or not her marriage lasted beyond that period. It was, after all, what she had originally sought. Best to stick to her plan and accomplish what she could.

  She rose and putting her cup and saucer aside, knew she needed to exercise her mind as well as her body.

  Pulling on the coat that Jack had ordered for her, she buttoned up the frog closures and descended the stairs and walked out the front door to the side garden. A maze of tall boxwoods, dotted with stone benches and a few sculptures, the walk was one she delighted in for its complexity. Not once in the past few days had she turned the same way or become bored. Often, she had a devil of a time finding her way out. The mental challenge, she told herself, would steer away her mood.

  But that was easier said than done. Finding a bench, she sat and considered her life these past few weeks. She loved her husband for his generosity of spirit to help her and his devotion to see the bargain through, even saving her physically from Trayne’s ridiculous kidnapping. So she had what she wanted from Jack. And if she had grown to care for him beyond the boundaries of their bargain, well then that was her challenge. Hers alone. She sighed in sadness. She was lonely. For her husband.

  And what if he never returns to me?

  Ah, that was foolish to believe. He cared for her, did he not? What man made love to a woman the way he did if he did not care for her?

  And how knowledgeable am I of men? And love?

  She jumped to her feet, cold tears streaming down her face. She dashed them away, chilling criticism of her naiveté ringing in her mind. She ran for the house and her bedroom.

  In the kitchen, she found Simmons talking with Cook and demanded he bring to her bedroom a reticule. “Any size. One of his lordship’s, if you must. And I want you to instruct the groom to ready the brougham for me.”

  When Simmons brought a leather satchel up to her bedroom, she had him place it on a bedside stool. The servant stood to one side while she folded chemises and stockings, scarves and fichus inside.

  “You may leave, Simmons.” She could not bear censure from him.

  “His lordship will not approve, my lady, that you have left without him knowing.”

  “His lordship,” she replied with determination, “is not here. And I will not be bound. Not deterred, do you hear me?”

  “Can I not entice you to stay, Emma?”

  She spun toward the far door.

  Jack.

  He nod
ded to Simmons, who promptly hurried away and shut the door.

  Her husband’s dark silver gaze took in the pile of her clothes, her body, her hair, her expression. With nary a word, he strolled toward her and raised his brows.

  Emma lifted her chin.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Were have you been?” she countered, peevish as a fishwife.

  “London.” From his dust-covered breeches and green frock coat, it was clear he had returned home with all due speed and perhaps on horseback.

  She dared not allow herself the hope that this implied he hurried home to her.

  “Where are you going, Emma?” he asked again, his large body looming over her, his eyes stark, his mouth stretched in grim lines.

  “I…I thought I would visit my mother.” She continued to arrange her clothes in the case.

  “I know she would like that.”

  She glanced around at him. “You do? How?”

  “I saw her three days ago. I went to Kent to talk to her. Introduce myself.”

  Emma surveyed his features. Charming man, rogue that he was, how could he be so endearing as to travel to visit her mother? Why now, even as she planned to leave him, did his actions surprise her? His devotion enchant her? “Why?”

  “To tell her what happened with her husband. She did not know. I thought she should.”

  Emma nodded, at a loss as to the deeper motivation for Jack’s visit. “Of course. She needed to know.”

  “She is relieved. In fact,” Jack said as he dug a small envelope from his inner coat pocket, “she sends you this.”

  Emma took it from him and with shaking fingers, tore open the parchment. As she read, tears obscured her vision. “She says she is well. Better than she has been in months, because you have come and told her about Daniel’s arrest.” She cleared the lump in her throat, then peered up at him. “I am grateful.”

  “I know, darling. You always are.” He tried to smile and failed. “Will you tell me why you are leaving me?”

  Because I want more from you than I expected. Because I was a fool to ask for so little and I shall never recover from wanting so much from our affair.