by Jo Beverley
She jerked her head up as reality came flooding back.
“Oh, my lord—Stephen—do we really have to talk about this now? It’s been such a long day.” She gave him a wavering smile, trying to remove the sting of rejection from her words, but she was simply too tired to argue with him anymore.
He started to look grim again. She placed her hand on his sleeve and massaged the corded muscle that lay under the fine broadcloth of his coat.
“There is so much to do for Annabel’s wedding. Don’t you think seeing her safely bestowed is the most important thing right now? We have plenty of time to discuss our own marriage later.” She batted her eyelashes at him, hoping he would respond to a display of feminine wiles.
Silverton looked ready to dispute the matter, but after examining her face through narrowed eyes, he capitulated. “All right, my love. Annabel and Robert will be married by the end of the month. I suppose I can wait till then.”
She sighed in relief. One side of his mouth quirked up wryly.
“Meredith, you worry too much.”
“I know,” she replied solemnly. “I have always found it a most vexing trait.”
He laughed. “Well, we have to see what we can do to change that.” He dropped a soft kiss on her lips before standing and pulling her to her feet.
“As much as I want to stay,” he murmured huskily, “I think you need your sleep more than you need lovemaking.”
Silverton grinned like a schoolboy at her undoubtedly shocked expression. He raised both her hands to his mouth and pressed them, one after the other, to his lips. “Rest, sweetheart. I will see you in the morning.”
He strode to the door, gave her one last, lingering look, and left the room.
Meredith sighed and sank back down onto the sofa. Her emotions were a jumble. Part of her still believed she was making a mistake, but if Silverton wanted to marry her in a month’s time, she would find the courage to be the best wife possible. In any event, she thought ruefully, it certainly seemed that he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Meredith?”
She looked up as Annabel peeked into the room.
“Was Lord Silverton just here?” the girl inquired innocently.
Meredith tried to frown severely at her sister. “You know exactly who it was.”
Annabel plumped down beside her on the sofa. “Well, I certainly hope you have made up with him. You’ve been moping around for two whole days now, and anyone can see it’s because you’ve been foolish enough to resist him.”
“Annabel!” gasped Meredith.
Her sister’s eyes suddenly grew round with excitement. “Did he give you that bracelet?” she squeaked, grabbing Meredith’s arm. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I know,” Meredith breathed as she returned her gaze to the glittering piece. “I shouldn’t have accepted it, but I just couldn’t seem to help myself.”
Annabel’s eyes grew solemn. “He loves you, doesn’t he?”
“He does, but is that enough?”
“Dearest!” Annabel threw her arms around her. “Of course it’s enough. It’s everything!”
Meredith returned her sister’s enthusiastic hug. If Annabel was so happy for her, then perhaps she had made the right decision after all. The girl might be young, but she had a perception and wisdom Meredith had learned to trust long ago. She laughed nervously, finally allowing herself to feel the restless happiness she had been holding at bay for the last half hour.
Annabel opened her mouth, no doubt to ask a thousand questions, when she was interrupted by a loud knock on the front door.
“Now who could be calling at this time of night?” Meredith wondered as she got to her feet.
Annabel shrugged. “I haven’t a clue, unless it’s Robert. He apparently needs to see me at least three times a day.”
Meredith was about to make a sarcastic reply, but she froze instead when she heard the sound of raised voices and breaking glass. Annabel leapt up and rushed over to grab her arm.
“Meredith,” her voice quivered with anxiety. “You don’t think…”
They heard heavy footsteps rushing up the steps and down the hallway. The door to the study flew open.
Isaac Burnley strode into the room, followed closely by his son Jacob. Both men wore heavy greatcoats, with thick mufflers around their throats. Meredith and Annabel shrank back against the sofa as their uncle advanced relentlessly toward them.
“My dear nieces,” he snarled, his lips stretched back in a feral grin. “Did you really think you could avoid me forever?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Robert demanded in a hostile voice.
Silverton ignored his cousin as he banged loudly on the front door of Meredith’s townhouse on Hill Street. He had been hammering the knocker against the door for five minutes now, and no one had answered. It was only ten in the morning. Even if Meredith and Annabel were out—unlikely, at best—one of the servants would have answered by now.
“Stephen!” Robert poked him hard in the arm. “How could you have kept this from me? Didn’t you think I’d want to know Annabel was in danger?”
Robert, of course, referred to the fact that he had been kept in the dark about the failed attempt to poison Annabel. Silverton had only told his cousin of the plot this morning, after picking him up on his way to Hill Street.
He spun on his heel and rushed down the front steps, running for the entrance to the laneway that ran behind the row of townhouses. Robert and Silverton’s groom, Simmons, followed closely behind.
“I’m sorry, Robert,” Silverton flung back over his shoulder. “Annabel and Meredith didn’t want to worry you or the rest of the family. We thought it best to keep it to ourselves until we had real proof of the attempt on her life.”
Robert raced to catch up with him. “I’ll wager my horse you told Trask, though, didn’t you?” he retorted bitterly.
Silverton slid to a halt at the entrance to the laneway. He grabbed his cousin by the shoulders and finally looked into the boy’s pale face. “I’m sorry, Robert, I truly am. But I needed his help. Please forgive me for offending you, but can we stop arguing for the moment and find out why no one answers the door at your fiancée’s house?”
Robert jerkily nodded his head. Silverton understood that part of his cousin’s anger sprang from the fear that something terrible had happened to Annabel and Meredith. He shared that fear, and he cursed himself now for assuming the sisters would be safe once they returned to the city.
After leaving Meredith last night Silverton had gone to Lady Mountley’s ball, the last big social event before the ton decamped from town for the summer. He was in no mood for socializing, but Trask had sent a missive earlier in the day informing him that he would be at the ball. The earl had, apparently, discovered important information regarding the Burnleys’ finances.
Silverton found Trask in the card room. As soon as the earl spied him, he threw down his cards and rose from the table. Ignoring the protests from the other players, Trask led the way out to Lady Mountley’s terrace.
“Is it as bad as we feared?” Silverton asked without any preamble.
“Worse,” Trask grimaced. “Isaac Burnley is completely bankrupt. My sources in Bristol tell me their wool factory has been struggling for some years, and probably never recovered from the financial crisis in 1811. When the trade began to move north, they lost most of their remaining business. Burnley then tried to recover his losses by investing on the Exchange with money he didn’t have. Those investments went bad sometime in the new year, which precipitated the final destruction of the family fortune.”
“The timing is just about right then,” mused Silverton. “The Burnleys appeared at Swallow Hill in February, which, coincidentally, was the same time that Annabel suffered a relapse of her illness. I think they were drugging the girl in order to justify her incarceration in a madhouse.”
“Have you received any informat
ion from the runner yet?”
“No. I just returned to London this afternoon. I sent a note around to Bow Street requesting him to report first thing tomorrow.”
Trask nodded brusquely. “Let me know what else I can do.”
The earl had returned to his card game, and Silverton had returned home to ponder the information his friend had provided.
Now Silverton couldn’t believe he had waited till morning to act. He should have returned immediately to Hill Street, pulled Meredith and Annabel from their beds, and brought them to the safety of his mansion in Grosvenor Square. As he raced into the laneway, he devoutly prayed that his own lapse in judgment wouldn’t separate him from Meredith forever.
The three men dashed past high walls and iron gates, splashing heavily through the mud and debris that collected in the alleyway. Silverton counted back entrances, then yanked open the gate to the small garden behind Meredith’s house. He strode swiftly to the basement door. It was flung wide open against the wall of the house.
Bloody hell. Fear clutched at his chest, making him breathless.
He pelted down into the kitchen. It was empty, and a shambles—chairs overturned, crockery smashed on the floor, the table askew against the wall.
“Robert, Simmons!” He gestured impatiently at the two men gaping in the doorway. “Go upstairs and see what you can find.”
Simmons brushed past him and headed for the front of the house. Robert, however, seemed paralyzed, his breath coming in short, sharp exhalations as the blood drained from his face.
“Robert,” Silverton urged quietly. “Go up to Annabel’s bedroom.”
The boy’s eyes darkened with anguish, his body still unable to move. Silverton knew he was afraid of what he would find upstairs.
He gripped Robert’s shoulder. “I promise you, she is fine. Isaac Burnley will not hurt her. He needs her too much.”
His cousin nodded and hurried from the room.
Silverton was about to follow when he heard pounding in a corner of the basement. Wheeling about, he saw a cramped set of stairs leading down to the cold cellar.
“Who’s in there?” he commanded in a loud voice.
“It’s Peter, sir, the footman,” came the muffled reply.
Silverton searched the floor and quickly found a key that had obviously been flung in the corner. He unfastened the lock and wrenched the door wide, gasping at the vision that met his eyes.
Peter, Mrs. Biggs, and a young scullery maid stood blinking in the light that flooded down from the kitchen. They were disheveled, dirty, and, from the distraught looks on their faces, appeared to have been locked away in the dark for hours. Silverton extended his hand and helped the women up the steps to the kitchen. The young maid was crying, and Mrs. Biggs flapped her immense apron in distress, causing billows of dust to waft up from the garment.
“Oh, my lord,” she keened, “those evil villains took away my poor lambs, they did, and there weren’t nothing we could do to stop them!”
Silverton’s gut clenched as his eyes roamed over the bruises on Mrs. Biggs’ cheek. Peter was in even worse shape, with a cut lip and two purple and swollen eyes.
“We tried, my lord.” The footman wrung his hands in distress. “But there were too many of them—five or six, at least. And there were just the three of us, seeing as Miss Noyes and Agatha were not returning until today, and Ruddle off visiting his sister in the country. I’m sorry, my lord. Those young ladies were my responsibility, and I let you down.”
Silverton led Mrs. Biggs to the kitchen table, picking up a chair and gently pushing her into it. He glanced over at the footman and shook his head.
“No, Peter, the fault is mine. I should have anticipated this and not allowed them to return to the house.”
Robert and Simmons reentered the kitchen in time to hear the last part of the conversation. Silverton looked a quick question at them. His cousin stared back, his boyish face expressing a searing combination of fear and reproach.
Robert had always idolized him, and to know that he had failed him so miserably was almost more than Silverton could bear. He had failed them all. He thought he had anticipated every circumstance, but his own arrogance had blinded him to the desperate stupidity of Isaac and Jacob Burnley.
“What did you find?” Silverton directed his question to Simmons.
“The furniture in the study is all in a tumble, my lord,” replied the man, shaking his head. “It looks to me like the young ladies were taken there.”
“They were in the bedrooms, too.” Robert finally found his voice, although it was hoarse with distress. “The drawers are pulled open, and some of their clothes appear to be gone.”
Silverton shut his eyes, nodding to himself. A bloody rage shifted behind his closed lids, but he forced himself to grasp the reins of his temper and calmly analyze the situation.
“Peter,” he said, opening his eyes and turning to the footman. “What time did they force the house last night?”
“Shortly after you left, my lord, just after ten o’clock. They were on me in a second, and dragged me right back to the kitchen with Mrs. Biggs and Maddie.”
“Aye, and I gave one of those devils a good wallop with my rolling pin,” cried the cook. “I vow he didn’t walk out the front door on his own two legs.”
“I know you did everything you could, Mrs. Biggs,” Silverton tried to smile at her.
“It weren’t enough!”
The sturdy woman burst into tears, throwing her dirty apron over her face. Silverton’s aching heart empathized with Mrs. Biggs’s tortured sense of failure.
“And to the best of your knowledge,” he grimly asked Peter, forcing himself to ignore the weeping women, “when did the Burnleys actually leave the house?”
“Can’t have been more than twenty minutes or so after they seized us, your lordship. Those men knew what they were about. They had us down in the root cellar so fast that my head was like to spin off, what with the beating they gave me and all. The house went quiet just a few minutes after that. We screamed and yelled, but heard not a single thing until you let us out just now.”
“Twelve hours head start…,” murmured Silverton. “Did you happen to see how many carriages they had with them?”
“Two, my lord. We had quite a tussle, but I saw them in front of the house as plain as day.”
Silverton bowed his head as he calculated the lost time, the distance the carriages must have traveled, and all the complications of a rescue attempt.
“What are we going to do, Stephen?” implored Robert.
Silverton looked up. Everyone in the room stared at him with expressions of mingled anxiety and hope. They clearly expected him to know what to do. He could not afford to fail them again.
“Simmons, go now and find Lord Trask. Check his home first. If he is not there, then try him at White’s, but do not give up until you find him. Tell him to meet me at Silverton House in an hour, with his curricle and fastest horses. We’ll be driving almost to Bath.”
“Yes, my lord.” Simmons disappeared through the back door.
“Peter.”
“Aye, my lord?”
“Get cleaned up and follow us home. We’ll be leaving in an hour.”
“What can I do, my lord?” inquired Mrs. Biggs with a huge sniffle.
Silverton patted her shoulder. “You can best help by setting the house to rights, Mrs. Biggs. Your mistresses will be tired when they return home, and I want them surrounded by their usual comforts.”
A beefy hand stretched out and grasped his sleeve. “Do you promise to bring them back, my lord?”
“Yes, Mrs. Biggs,” he said, knowing he would succeed or die trying. “I promise.”
“Right you are then.” She nodded once and got to her feet. “Good luck to you, my lord.”
Silverton motioned to Robert and stalked down the hallway to the front door. He threw it open and ran down the steps to his waiting curricle.
“Stephen, old man.” His cousi
n hurried after him. “Where in God’s name are we going? We can’t just dash off and hope we’ll stumble across their trail, can we?”
Silverton leapt up onto the high perch and waited for Robert to climb after him. As he took the ribbons into his hands, Silverton thought back to the conversation he’d had with the Bow Street runner earlier this morning. The runner had not been able to discover the whereabouts of the man who had poisoned Meredith, but he had unearthed a nugget of information that was now infinitely more valuable, given the change in circumstances.
“Try not to worry, Robert. I’ll explain everything once we’re on our way.” Silverton urged the horses into a quick trot. “But I assure you, I know exactly where to look for them. And this time, Isaac and Jacob Burnley will not escape.”
Meredith stumbled down the steps of the carriage, following Annabel across a dirty yard paved with broken flagstones. She looked blearily up at the windblown sky, trying to shake off the effects of the drug she had been forced to drink the night before. As far as she could tell, it was around midday, although thick clouds had hidden the sun since dawn.
The carriage had traveled through the night, causing her to lose all sense of time many hours ago. She had thought the nightmarish journey would never end. Not that Meredith could remember much of it—just flashes of panic whenever she surfaced from her unnatural sleep to catch Jacob staring at her from the opposite bench of the coach. Once or twice he had reached out to touch her, but she had shrunk back against Annabel, turning her face away from him. Later, near dawn, she had forced herself to look at her cousin. In the dim light of the travel lamps, Jacob had appeared as evil as any monster that Meredith could have conjured up in a painting.
Annabel, fortunately, had slept most of the night. At first Meredith had been terrified the dose of laudanum Isaac had poured down her sister’s throat had been too much. It wasn’t, and she was grateful Annabel had been spared the realization of what was happening to them, at least for a few hours.
Meredith felt Jacob’s hand against the small of her back, pushing her toward an open doorway. As she crossed the yard she looked up at the old house looming before her. It was a low, rambling building roofed in gray slate, grown dingy with age. Tall chimneys rose against the iron gray sky but, despite the day’s chill, no smoke crept up to hint of any welcoming fires. The windows were latticed and covered in soot, emitting no light. The whole effect of the place was one of dirtiness and disrepair.
