by Amy Atwell
“What?” Olivia gave a horrified shriek. “That conniving little witch—she stole Reed. She must have planned it all along. What a fool I was to trust her.” Her cheeks turned red with rage, and her eyes grew icy.
Derek looked to Curtis for a clarification of this tirade, but his brother had stepped to the sideboard to fill a glass for himself.
“Livvie, if you’re going to call my wife names, I’d appreciate an explanation.”
Instead of the guilty apology he expected, Olivia raised her chin. “We’ve been made fools, Derek. Your wife has run off with my fiancé. These past two weeks, she convinced me she was helping my cause. Mama didn’t approve my choice, so it was difficult for Reed and I to see each other. Johanna delivered notes between us, but apparently she spent so much time with Reed, she decided she wanted him for herself.”
Tension built within him, but he knew Olivia was prone to overreact. He took a hearty gulp of the strong amber liquid, hoping to warm his stiff fingers and cold toes. “It seems a bit far-fetched to assume they ran off together when Paget said they only went to the theater.”
Curtis drained his glass. “I must agree with Olivia. I believe they’ve left town together. Reed told me he needed to help a friend, and he’d be leaving London for a few days. He hired a coach this afternoon to take him to Dover and asked me to make his apologies to Livvie for they’d planned on meeting at a party this evening.”
“How do you know about the coach?” Derek asked.
Curtis laughed. “I lent him the damn money for it. He said it was imperative that he go today, said his future happiness depended on it. I didn’t give it any thought. Reed is always over dramatizing things. But he didn’t have the money for the coach, and I lent it to him.” Curtis looked at his stepbrother’s stony face. “There must be some logical explanation, Derek. I cannot believe Johanna would run off with Reed Barlow. It makes no sense.”
The truth settled on him, denser and colder than the fog. She’d left him. He’d offered her a choice, and she’d chosen to go at once. “On the contrary. It all makes perfect sense,” Derek responded quietly. “Johanna and I fought last night. I suspect she convinced Reed to help her escape me.” He downed the remainder of his brandy.
His earlier euphoria fled before the engulfing pain of this loss. There would be no re-kindling of Johanna’s love if she’d left him. Just as St. John had predicted, Derek had held her away—despite his noble reasons—only to lose her. Perhaps it was best this way.
“I want to kill both of them,” Olivia announced to the room at large.
Curtis looked from one to the other. “Why don’t we go after them? Derek, you cannot tell me you’re willing to have it known Johanna left you for Reed Barlow. They must pay for this. There’s no reason for them to go to Dover unless they’re leaving the country. High tide isn’t until afternoon, and we could reach Dover by midmorning.”
Olivia tugged on his arm. “Yes, let’s. Derek, you should call Reed out for trying to steal your wife.”
Derek couldn’t imagine calling out someone as inept as Reed Barlow. He’d derive much more satisfaction by calling out Johanna. No doubt she was the real culprit who’d somehow convinced Reed to carry her off at the opportunity Derek had allowed her. Besides, she’d be a far fairer match for him than Reed in a duel. Derek cursed himself. If he’d forced her to go to Bath with him, none of this would have happened. He could have saved his whole family another scandal.
Then another, more unnerving, possibility occurred to him. Reed Barlow was Worthing’s cousin. What if the dandy were conveying Johanna to her true love in Dover? Derek tried to picture Johanna living happily with St. John. After all, he’d offered her the chance to choose her love. A vision of Johanna naked in St. John’s arms obliterated any noble thoughts of letting her go. He was damned if he would allow any other man to steal what was his—not without fighting for her. St. John might be a better man, but he couldn’t love Johanna more than Derek, and he would move heaven and earth to tell her so.
“Paget!” Derek turned to Curtis and Olivia. “I’m going to Dover. You may accompany me, but no complaining. The trip will be fast, and probably uncomfortable.”
“I want to see them pay,” Olivia responded.
Curtis’s eyes flashed in agreement.
Derek nodded assent, but then seemed to catch himself. “Where’s your mother?”
“Holed up with a headache,” Curtis said. “She took to her bed hours ago. I doubt she’ll know we’re gone.”
“I’ll have Stokes deliver a note, so she won’t worry. Ah, Paget, tell Cushing to harness the grays to the chaise. We leave for Dover as soon as he’s able.”
Paget’s brows flew up in surprise, but he responded immediately to the command.
Derek turned back to his brother and sister. “We shall find them, fear not. And then we will lay bare the truth of this matter."
~
Less than an hour later, Derek stepped out to the mews lit by torches and lanterns. The horses were hitched, tossing restless heads and held in check by yawning grooms. Man and horse alike knew this was no hour to be traveling.
Paget handed a basket up to Cushing on the box. Wise man. No doubt the basket contained food to sustain them on their trek. Derek tucked the box he carried under his arm and went to join his siblings as Curtis handed Olivia into the chaise.
“A family outing, at this odd hour?”
Derek turned at the familiar sarcasm to find St. John handing the reins of his horse to a groom. Damn. Even in the midst of this remarkable activity, the man appeared nothing but bored. Derek handed the box to Curtis. “Wait inside while I have a private word with Worthing. Store the box on the floor beneath the seat, but make certain we can reach it if we meet trouble.”
Curtis nodded before climbing into the chaise.
Derek strode to confront St. John. “Where is she?” he demanded.
St. John’s eyes glinted in the torchlight. “She’s not here?”
“You know damn well she isn’t.”
“I only know Johanna sent me a note earlier this afternoon saying she planned to join a theater party I was hosting. She never appeared.” St. John’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do to her?”
Derek’s jaw tightened at the accusation. “I drove her away. My wife has run off with your young cousin.” After last night, he hated to admit the situation to his rival, but his earlier uneasiness had returned. He needed answers, and St. John might have them.
“Reed?” St. John snorted with contempt. “Unlikely, at best.”
“Be that as it may, he laid his plans and stole away with my wife earlier tonight. We have reason to believe they’ve gone to Dover and may be sailing for the Continent. We hope to catch them. My brother and sister go with me.” Eager to set forth, Derek turned back to the coach.
“May I come, too?”
The request, sincerely made, caught Derek off-guard. “To what purpose?”
“To help my brother reclaim what he’s lost.” St. John regarded him steadily.
Derek swallowed. “I may have lost Johanna for good.”
“I doubt that.” St. John put out his hand. “If you’ll have me, I’d like to help.”
Derek considered his former nemesis. So many of Derek’s judgments had been driven by wrong beliefs. They had much to forgive, but this man had proven a true friend to Johanna when she’d needed someone. He clasped St. John’s hand firmly. “Let us be off then."
Chapter 22
“Do you think Olivia would mind if we only came to London for part of the Season? I’m not sure how I shall afford it, but if the duke lets us live at Ambersley part of the year—”
A burst of birdsong caught Johanna’s attention and warned her of the coming dawn. She didn’t bother to point out that Derek wasn’t likely to allow the man who had disappeared with his wife to marry his sister and live at Ambersley.
Her experience during the night had taught her reasoning with Reed was useless. He listened
to her arguments, nodded politely and then launched another flight of fancy. In self-defense, Johanna resorted to addressing him by his first name, as if speaking to a not very bright child. Eventually, she did her best to ignore him.
They arrived in Dover after sunup. The bumpy road and damp chill had left her stiff and irritable from lack of sleep when Reed nudged her awake. She’d quickly abandoned the notion of jumping from the moving carriage in the middle of a foggy night, but as they drew to a stop at an inn yard, Johanna planned to demand assistance from the innkeeper.
Her plan was thwarted when Reed pulled a small pistol from his cloak. Upon descending from the coach, he announced he was a Bow Street Runner. He proclaimed her his prisoner and demanded a private dining room. The innkeeper, a surly man with hair grizzled around his ears and an overbearing wife, apologized that his inn didn’t boast private dining rooms, but he could close up the coffee room and tell everyone to go elsewhere. After much cogitation, Reed agreed this would do.
Though Johanna appreciated his talent for playacting—indeed, he was fit to rival Edmund Kean on the Drury Lane stage—she knew Reed could never have hatched this ploy on his own. Unable to judge his familiarity with firearms, she dared not cross him. The last thing she needed was to get someone killed. Instead, while the coffee room was being prepared for them, she bent her thinking toward who would convince Reed to abduct her. Who would be able to promise him a chance to win Olivia if this went well? Who would stand to gain from her own disappearance? The answer burst upon her with rays of enlightenment—Curtis. He was Reed’s friend, he was Derek’s heir, and he had always wanted to cause trouble for her.
His interference couldn’t have come at a worse time. If Derek returned and found her missing, he would assume the worst. She should have left him a note before leaving the house. Gnawing the tip of her fingernail, Johanna tried to uncover some way out of this stupid mess.
The innkeeper returned to the coach to tell Reed the coffee room was prepared. “We shuttered the windows, and there’s only the one door. She won’t be able to give you the slip. But I’ll need the coffee room to use when the Mail Coach arrives at two this afternoon. The customers are always mighty thirsty when they get down from the Mail.”
“Where does the Mail go from here?” Johanna asked.
The innkeeper looked at her as if she’d bitten him, but he wasn’t impervious to a pretty girl in a bright blue-green dress. “It goes back to London.”
Johanna didn’t dare speak another word until the innkeeper had shown them into the darkened coffee room. He called to his wife to bring their guests breakfast, and bowed himself out to Reed.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Johanna faced her abductor. “Reed, you must get me a ticket on the Mail. I haven’t money enough with me, but I’ll repay you when we return home.”
Reed smiled with the success of his playacting. “Be patient, Lady Ambersley. Someone is bringing you a ticket.”
“For the Mail?” Johanna asked suspiciously.
In answer, he smiled and pretended to lock his lips closed and throw away the key.
Johanna gave an exasperated groan. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I shall find some way back to London. Oh, shoot me if you must!” She saw him raise the pistol, and did her best to bluff him.
Reed didn’t give ground as she thought he would, but leveled the pistol at her with what looked like remarkably accurate aim. “I cannot allow you to ruin this for me now, Lady Ambersley. You must wait with me here. Otherwise, I might never win Olivia.”
The innkeeper chose that moment to enter with their breakfast, his eyes widening at the sight of the pistol. She crossed her arms and pursed her lips as he laid two steaming plates of eggs and sausages on the table. She watched him wipe his hands on his dirty apron and then lean toward Reed.
In an exaggerated whisper, he said, “I’ve some rope if you’d like to tie her up.” He winked at Reed.
Johanna reminded herself that throwing something at them wouldn’t improve her situation in the least.
After the innkeeper left, with the clink of Reed’s coins in his pocket, Reed motioned her to sit. She watched him set his pistol beside his plate, and finally she sat across from him and played with her food.
She contemplated the gun, but quickly discarded the option. She never knew if a gun’s aim would be true, and they seemed far more difficult to control. Reed appeared more confident than she about the pistol, therefore, she wouldn’t chance wrestling it from him.
She picked at her plate. The sausage grease was coagulating, and the sight of ale on the table at this hour turned her stomach. Reed attacked his meal with gusto, and Johanna tried to imagine Olivia’s reaction to her love’s eating habits. With a tiny sigh, she pushed her plate away and sipped her acrid coffee instead. She glanced around the public room with its trestle tables, pewter plates and tankards, and dingy whitewashed walls. Her eyes drifted past the fireplace surrounded in rustic local stone. No fire was lit—it might have helped dispel the gloominess of the shuttered room. The brightest thing in the room was her dress, and she felt hopelessly out of place. The innkeeper probably thought she was a strumpet.
Then her eyes lighted on a cutlass and four rapiers hanging upon the wall. She studied them intently as she sipped her coffee. With a sword, she would have the advantage over Reed. She darted a glance his way to see him dabbing a spot of grease from his shirt. She felt sure she could best him in a fencing match.
“Reed, if my husband were here, you know he would call you out.”
Reed drained the ale from his tankard then dabbed at his mouth with his fingertips. “But your husband isn’t here, Lady Ambersley.”
“Indeed he’s not,” she replied, pleased he was able to deduce this simple fact. “Therefore, I have no one to defend this insult to my honor.”
He gave this some thought. “I haven’t insulted you.”
“You kidnapped me, Reed. Most people would consider that an insult to my honor.”
He smiled and wagged a finger at her. “That’s your story, Lady Ambersley. If anyone discovers this escapade, I will say you ran away with me willingly.”
Johanna quelled the urge to box his ears. Do you think after announcing you and I ran off together, that Olivia will marry you? But she held her tongue, for no good could come of giving him that hare to chase. She held true to her course. “I didn’t run away with you, Reed. That’s a lie, and I demand satisfaction.”
She stripped off one then the other of her evening gloves. She, too, could play a part, and playing the helpless lady might give her the element of surprise. “I believe I should cast one of these down before you, but I hate to since the floor looks filthy.”
He stared at her for a full second before he burst out laughing. “That’s rich, Lady Ambersley. How can you demand satisfaction? Am I to believe you’re challenging me?”
“And why not? My challenge is no worse than any man’s. We’ll use these.” She tossed her gloves on a chair and turned to grasp two of the rapiers from the wall. They came out of their holders easily, light and balanced. She felt more secure as soon as her fingers curled around their hilts. She turned back to see him rise from his chair. The pistol on the table lay forgotten as he came toward her with a smile of condescension on his face.
“I couldn’t accept a challenge from you. What would I do if you were hurt? Please, Lady Ambersley, put the notion out of your head. Give me the swords.”
“I’ll not be patronized, Reed. Derek taught me the basics of fencing. I think I can hold my own. As for being hurt, I’m not afraid. Are you?” She raised an eyebrow at him.
Reed flushed to his roots. “Of course not. But these are not foils with safety tips. No doubt Lord Ambersley has convinced you of your own prowess, but I’m an accomplished swordsman and more than your equal.”
“If that be the case, than you’ve nothing to fear. You need only defend yourself to prevent hurting me and to prevent me hurting you. If indeed you are a master,
I shall be unable to touch you.” She tried a disarming smile. “Come, let us attempt two or three passes. If I’m not your match, I’ll openly admit it, surrender my sword and be a good girl. However, if I best you, then you must purchase me that ticket and send me home.”
With a huff, Reed ran his hand through his blonde curls, then he accepted one of the swords from her. Johanna gathered her skirt behind her as he pushed the chairs and a table out of their way and doffed his coat. He lectured her throughout. “Very well, Lady Ambersley, I shall allow you three passes to gauge your abilities. If you prove you know what you’re about, then I shall consider whether to accept your wager.”
They took positions in the center of the room a few feet apart. Johanna saluted him neatly with her rapier.
