by M C Beaton
“Freddie!” she screamed. But the broad back of her husband disappeared into the darkness of the carriage and a footman slammed the door behind him. The coachman on the box cracked his whip, and the carriage swayed off down the narrow street.
Lucy’s beautiful mouth folded into a thin line. Lord Hubert Challenge should hear of this.
Mrs. Witherspoon was awakened by a commotion below her bedroom window. Ever curious, she opened the window and leaned out, her great bosoms spilling over the sill.
A small trunk had rolled from the back of a traveling carriage and had broken open. Fine silks and satins were spilling out into the greasy mud of the street. Mrs. Witherspoon settled her elbows on the sill and prepared herself to thoroughly enjoy every bit of someone else’s misfortune.
The carriage door opened and a heavily veiled young lady descended followed by a large young man. Mrs. Witherspoon recognized the young man as Major Godwin. Then the young lady, who was instructing a groom on the refastening of her damaged trunk, threw back her veil. Mrs. Witherspoon drew in her breath in a hiss of excitement. Mary Challenge! That high and mighty, hoity-toity Mary Challenge with none other than Freddie Godwin! Beau Brummell himself would listen to such a marvelous piece of gossip. And as for Lord Hubert who looked at the Witherspoons as if they had crawled out from under a rock—how he would smart.
She watched avidly until the couple reentered the carriage and moved off.
She was about to leave the window when she saw another familiar figure. She leaned out again. Viscount Lord Peregrine St. James was standing outside his house a little way down the street, staring after the departing carriage. Then he swung about and rushed indoors. Mrs. Witherspoon waited. Two minutes later, his horse was brought round and Lord Peregrine swung himself up into the saddle and galloped off in the direction the carriage had taken.
Lord Hubert Challenge should hear of this—for a price.
“I’ve told you and told you,” said Lady Clarissa. “Now I wish you would go away.”
How could I ever have loved this monster? thought Clarissa angrily. Lord Hubert had dragged her from her bed in the small hours of the morning and had questioned her over and over again about that wretched dinner party in Brussels. He was sure he remembered Perry sliding some papers behind the clock. “What of it?” Clarissa had yawned. She always stuffed letters and things behind the clock in the dining room. Perry probably thought they were love letters and had taken them out to look at them. Hubert must know by now how jealous Perry was.
“I am well aware of Perry’s jealousy,” said Hubert grimly. “But I am not leaving until you think a little harder. Did Perry ever say or do anything that might lead you to believe that he would turn traitor?”
“Oh, anything to be rid of you,” groaned Clarissa. “Very well. He rather admired Napoleon, but Perry is a Whig so that is nothing strange. I would not become affianced to a man who would betray his country.”
“Why do you want to marry Lord Peregrine?” asked Hubert, stopping his pacing of her bedroom and coming to stand over her.
“Because you married that silly widgeon,” snapped Clarissa, too tired to speak less than the truth.
“But you still mean to go through with it?”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes. He amuses me. He’s a brute. I like brutes, But I no longer like you, Hubert. You are merely boorish and unpleasant and my head aches so. Go and ask Perry. That would surely have been a more intelligent thing to do than bursting into my bedroom and supplying my servants with gossip.”
“I thought to find him here,” said Hubert.
“And having not found him, why did you not leave immediately?”
“Because I want to confront him with some evidence. Now think again, Clarissa. We all left the dining room when Captain Black arrived….”
Clarissa sighed loudly. The drizzle had thickened into a heavy rain which pattered mournfully against the windows.
“Well…” Clarissa was beginning, when there came a timid scratching at the door and a maid entered, her head down and eyes averted. One never knew, after all, what one would find in the Lady Clarissa’s bedroom.
“An it please my lady,” she whispered. “Mrs. Witherspoon is below demanding an audience. Mrs. Witherspoon says as how she has urgent news of Lord St. James.”
“Tell the old baggage to take her gossip out into the kennel where it belongs…” began Clarissa wrathfully, but Lord Hubert was already at the door.
“I shall see her,” he said to the maid, ignoring Clarissa’s horrified cry of, “How dare you give that tattle tongue more food for gossip, Hubert!”
He ran lightly down the stairs and entered Clarissa’s drawing room.
Mrs. Witherspoon dropped him a magnificent curtsy, the feathers on her turban quivering with anticipation.
“It is a shocking miserable day, is it not?” she said leering up at him as she rose from her curtsy.
“You did not come calling at this hour of the morning to exchange pleasantries on the weather. Out with it,” said Hubert grimly.
Mrs. Witherspoon smiled at him coyly, not in the least put out by his angry manner. “I could not find you at home,” she said, “and as it was a matter of some urgency, I thought Lady Clarissa might know your whereabouts.”
“Now you found me,” snapped Hubert. “But since your news is about Lord Peregrine, what concern is it of mine?”
“Ah, that would be telling,” smirked Mrs. Witherspoon. “I would like it understood that if I do your lordship a favor I expect one in return.”
“How much?”
“La, it ain’t money,” giggled Mrs. Witherspoon. “Me and my husband only ask for a little social kindness in return, if your lordship takes my meaning.”
Hubert stared at her in baffled rage. Then he said in measured tones. “It is believed that Lord Peregrine may be a traitor to his country ma’am. You will give me any information you have, or by this night every fashionable drawing room in London will be calling you his collaborator.”
Mrs. Witherspoon shrank back in her chair away from the blazing anger in his eyes. “Well, I don’t want to be the one to pass along bad news,” she said sulkily. “But your wife left at around six and a half hours of the morning with Major Godwin.”
Hubert looked down at her with an expression she could not fathom.
“And,” he suddenly said quietly, looming over her, “you also mentioned Lord Peregrine—or had you forgotten.”
Mrs. Witherspoon looked up into his eyes and what she now saw there terrified the wits out of her. She shakily stood up, edging sideways away from him and began to babble. “Lord Perry started riding after them. That’s all, my lord. Please let me go. It’s late I am for my dressmaker. That’s all I know.”
“Go then,” said Hubert, looking at her with disgust. “But keep that silly tattle-tale mouth of your closed, madam, or it will be the worse for you. I cannot call you out, more’s the pity, but there is always your husband.”
Mrs. Witherspoon gave a horrified squawk and, gathering up her voluminous skirts, fled the room.
Hubert barked out an order to one of Clarissa’s footmen to fetch his racing curricle.
Returning to the drawing room Hubert sat down heavily and buried his head in his hands as wave after wave of hot, burning jealousy swept over him. He wanted to find Mary and take her in his arms and tell her he loved her; he wanted to choke the life out of her. Gradually his hot brain began to clear and he had a sudden and vivid memory of leaving Mary in the small hours of the morning to see Clarissa. He had expected her to know what he was thinking. She had obviously thought he had fled from her arms to Clarissa’s and God only knew he had given her enough reason to think so. She was probably returning to her parents and had persuaded Freddie to take her. Freddie was not the man to elope with anyone else’s wife. He roused himself and went to wait for his curricle.
Lucy Godwin went in search of Lord Challenge at St. James’s, only to be told by a footman that he could be found at L
ady Thorbury’s.
As Lord Challenge was pulling on his York tan driving gloves and pacing up and down impatiently on the doorstep, he felt an imperative tug on his arm. Lucy Godwin looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears.
“Freddie has eloped with Mary,” wailed Lucy.
“Fustian,” snapped Lord Hubert. “He is merely escorting her to her parents.”
“But he told me so,” sobbed Lucy whose self pity had made Freddie’s brief words appear to have been a full scale rejection. “He threw back his head and laughed at me and said he’d always loved Mary, and that he was leaving with her.”
“Out of my way,” said Hubert coldly. “I am going to follow them in any case.”
“Take me with you!” screamed Lucy, hanging onto his arm.
“I am driving my curricle,” said Hubert impatiently. “You are not dressed for an open carriage in this weather.”
“I will not melt,” said Lucy with surprising vigor. “I insist on going.”
“Don’t complain then,” he rejoined curtly.
He sprang up into the curricle and a footman helped Lucy mount by way of the wheel. She wrapped herself in rugs and tried to ignore the driving rain which was making a sorry wreck of her new bonnet. After fifteen minutes of swaying and jolting, she whispered a complaint that she felt sick.
Lord Hubert Challenge paid her not the slightest heed whatsoever.
A watery sunlight was beginning to bathe the English fields as Mary and Major Freddie Godwin jolted along side by side, each silently immured in their own thoughts. Freddie was cursing himself for his weakness, but he could not help regretting not telling Lucy the true state of affairs. The poor little love had been so terribly jealous.
He had admired Mary as being a sensible woman, but now he began to feel that this situation was somehow all her fault and longed to return to Lucy to be bullied and humiliated once more. For her part, Mary was beginning to feel foolish. Perhaps she should have stayed until Hubert came home and asked him the meaning of his strange behavior. As the miles rolled under the carriage wheels, and London faded in the distance, she could only remember Hubert’s voice as he said he loved her.
Freddie rapped on the roof of the carriage with his cane. “Pull up at the next posting house, John,” he called to the coachman. He leaned back against the squabs. “We will both feel better when we have had something to eat,” he explained gently.
Mary answered him with a miserable little nod. The sun was beginning to beat on the carriage roof making it uncomfortably warm inside. A hot tear ran down her cheek and splashed on the skirt of her gown. Love was not what she had imagined it would be.
She had dreamt of a tranquil, affectionate relationship. Not this burning, unsettling emotion that made you believe the worst of the one you loved. She suddenly could not bear it any longer. She did not care if Freddie was angry with her. She simply had to go back.
She turned to speak to her companion when the carriage lurched to a sudden halt, nearly throwing them on the floor.
“What the devil…” began Freddie, jerking down the carriage window and thrusting his head out.
Then in front of Mary’s horrified eyes a pistol butt came down on the top of his head, and he slowly toppled forwards through the window. Then the carriage door was jerked open and Lord Peregrine St. James stood there with a more unpleasant expression than usual on his heavy face.
He pulled Mary out onto the grass beside the road and, as she kicked and screamed, called on some unseen assistant for help. Rough hands wrenched off her bonnet and turned her face down on the grass, while her wrists and ankles were firmly tied. Then she was twisted over and a wad of gun cotton was stuffed in her mouth and she was gagged with a handkerchief.
Mary rolled over and stared wildly upwards. Lord Peregrine had three uncouth helpers; coarse, brutal looking men. The coachman and the groom were lying trussed up beside the road, and Freddie was lying on the grass where he had fallen, blood streaming from an ugly gash on his head.
All was suddenly very quiet. The only sounds were of the birds chirping in the hedgerows and the faint barking of a dog several fields away. The black clouds of the morning had rolled away, leaving the day hot and sunny, smelling of the grasses and flowers of the countryside, the pastoral scene somehow intensifying the nightmare.
Lord Peregrine stooped down and picked Mary up into his arms. She averted her eyes from his leering face.
Still he did not speak. He carried her to another travelling carriage which had been swung across the road and threw her in on the floor among the straw. One of his helpers took the reins and the other two jumped up on the back strap.
Lord Peregrine prodded Mary lazily with his boot as she rolled backwards and forwards helplessly on the floor as the carriage sprang forward and lurched and swayed as it headed down the road towards its destination.
Mary closed her eyes tightly to blot out Lord Peregrine’s face and tried to think. What would Hubert think if he did not find her at home? Perhaps he would not care. All her jealousy for Clarissa came pouring back and her anger gave her courage.
One thing was sure. Hubert would never find her. She would need to lie very still and watch and wait for a chance of escape. But secretly she felt this was the end. She looked up at Lord Peregrine and read her death warrant in his eyes.
The carriage rolled on and on. Once it slowed in the narrow streets of a market town and the shaggy head of a yokel peered in at the carriage window, his eyes popping out of his head at the sight of a gagged and bound young lady lying on the carriage floor. Mary stared up at him, her eyes dilated, pleading for help. Then Lord Peregrine shouted, “We’ll never get to Dover at this pace!” and the carriage rolled on. No cry of alarm was raised. Mary had never felt more frightened or more alone.
At long last, they stopped to change horses. With a slow smile, Lord Peregrine threw a blanket over Mary and all hopes she had of rescue faded to one little dot of light. He has abducted you before, a little voice of hope nagged in her brain, and Hubert rescued you then. But that small gleam of hope was almost agonizing. Better to prepare her mind for death.
The blanket was removed and the headlong flight continued. Night fell and a pale sliver of moon lurched and swayed along beside the carriage. Lord Peregrine fell asleep, leaving Mary to stare up at the moving sky. Where was he taking her? And if he wanted to kill her, why take her so far?
At last, as a red dawn barred the sky, Mary fell asleep and did not awake when the carriage stopped to change the horses again.
She awoke to the sound of the carriage wheels rumbling over cobbles and then she thought she could smell the sea. Suddenly, from overhead came the high, thin scream of a seagull.
The carriage door was opened by one of the ruffians who jerked his thumb at Mary. “Best put her in a sack me lord so’s we can take ’er on board without fuss.”
Lord Peregrine nodded. “Fair enough, Jim. Slide it over her legs. Stay still, damn you.” For Mary had begun to feebly kick out with her bound feet.
Then she lay still and let them bundle her up in the sack. When she was carried from the carriage, she planned to wriggle up onto and kick to attract attention. She felt herself being heaved up onto Jim’s back. She waited until he had stumbled a few steps with her and then she began to kick and wriggle in earnest. “Seize ’er feet, man,” Jim whispered to one of the ruffians.
“What have you got there?” called a jolly voice and Mary tried to wriggle harder, although her feet were now being held tight.
“As prime a porker as you ever did see,” yelled Jim cheerfully.
“I like ’em with a bit of life in ’em,” answered the jolly voice.
“Move once more and I’ll knock you unconscious, you plaguey woman,” muttered Jim, and Mary ceased her struggles.
Soon from the creaking of wood and the hiss of the wind, Mary judged she was being carried aboard a vessel. She was bumped and banged ruthlessly down a short flight of stairs. There was a grunting and whee
zing as Jim dumped his load and searched for a key. Then she was picked up and, a short minute later, dumped onto the floor. The stifling sack was jerked from her head and then her body. Then the gag was taken from her mouth by an ungentle hand, and the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles were cut. She groaned aloud as the circulation began to return to her hands and feet, aimed a feeble punch at Jim, and fainted dead away.
“That’ll keep ’er quiet till ’is lordship’s ready for ’er,” muttered Jim. He went out and carefully locked the cabin door behind him.
Chapter Nine
Lucy Godwin had almost forgotten her misery over her husband’s unfaithfulness. She had never felt so battered, beaten or bruised in her life.
Lord Hubert was driving neck or nothing through the now sunny countryside. She had screamed in protest several times as her ferocious driver had skimmed past a farm vehicle on the road with barely an inch to spare. The members of the Four-In-Hand Club would have cheered. Lucy begged in vain for Lord Hubert to stop the nightmarish pace.
