And yet Deirdre was the one who’d never betrayed him, who would never betray him. He knew that now—now when it might be too late!
Dear God, don’t let it be too late!
Desperation coursed through him. He ached to undo, to replay, to turn back the hands of the clock, to be a different man who would cause a different course of events—
Miraculously, he heard the rattling wheels of a carriage approaching them. He swung Meggie down and then stepped out into the road to wave it down.
It creaked to a halt just before him, so close he could feel the hot breath gusting from the horses.
The driver tipped his cap up. “You lost, guv’nor?”
Before Calder could answer, a shriek came from inside the vehicle. “Humbert, how dare you stop! He could be a highwayman! Drive over the rotter if you must!”
Calder held his hands wide and approached the side of the carriage. “No, please! You must help us! My wife’s been kidnapped. If you let us on, we can catch them still!”
A round, angry face framed by a silk turban appeared at the window. “We’ll do no such thing!” The woman shook her finger at him. “We want nothing to do with such matters, do we, Harold?”
Calder tried to put on a soothing mein. “Please, madam, sir! They are only moments ahead but if we delay—”
“Humbert, drive on!”
The driver raised his hands to snap the reins, then he halted, his eyes wide on Calder. Or rather, what sat in Calder’s grip, black and shining and deadly. It was Baskin’s spent pistol, which he scarcely remembered tucking into his shirt. Calder regarded it with some surprise himself. That had been entirely too easy to do.
“Oh, dear,” he said mildly. “It seems I’ll be taking the carriage after all.”
There came a muffled squeak from the general direction of Meggie. Calder sighed. All those hours of etiquette lessons, gone in a flash. Oh, well. There was no help for it.
He waggled the pistol at the occupants of the carriage. “Madam, sir, out you come.”
The small wiry man helped his large gasping wife from the vehicle. Calder looked at the driver. “I fear you’ll be coming with us, my good man. I’ll give you fifty pounds if you’ll do so willingly.”
The woman shrieked. “Humbert, you wretch, it’ll be the end of you if you do!”
The driver looked at the couple with a slight smile, and then back at Calder, his grin widening, and nodded. “I’d have come for five.”
The small man paled further. “You—you cannot mean to leave us here alone! Why, it might be days before someone else comes this way!”
Calder looked at the driver. “Is that true?”
Humbert shrugged. “Might be. The weather’s turnin’. Not much call to come this way when there’s mud for a road.”
Meggie folded her arms. “Can’t we leave them, Papa? The lady’s voice makes my teeth hurt.”
Calder glanced at the couple. They were ill-suited to last more than an hour on their own. “What if they don’t survive?”
Meggie shrugged. “I’ll bet no one likes them anyway.”
Humbert grimaced in agreement.
When Calder still hesitated, the woman shrieked in rage. “You horrible man! You wouldn’t dare! What sort of father are you, to commit such a crime!”
Calder rather doubted that the woman was truly concerned for the state of Meggie’s moral character. “It cannot be helped,” he replied shortly.
“You should be ashamed of yourself! You’re a horrible influence on the child!”
He grinned at his daughter, feeling fierce and free and hopeful for the first time. She grinned back at him, a matching light in her eyes, so like his. “It’s quite the other way about, you know.”
He tipped his hat at the couple. “So be it. You’ll stay here. I’ll send help, once I’ve accomplished my mission.” He swung Meggie into the carriage and clambered aboard. “Drive on, Humbert!”
It didn’t take long, going at speed, to catch up to his phaeton, for it lay abandoned in a ditch. Calder and Meggie leapt from their carriage and examined the broken phaeton, but it was empty—
Except for a great deal of blood.
They have to be close by, for Baskin can’t get far carrying Deirdre, but the Heath is so large and so dark, they could be anywhere!
They needed manpower.
Driving fast, Humbert had them at the outskirts of the Heath in moments, but it seemed like hours. He ordered the driver to stop at the only sign of life, a grimy public house that still seemed to be serving.
He had no choice but to leave Meggie to watch over the carriage. He didn’t think the driver would disappear without his fifty pounds, but he could not afford for the man to escape and call the watch down upon him. The consequences for tonight’s madness would come eventually and he would face them gladly—if he had Deirdre by his side.
The outrageousness of leaving a nine-year-old to hold a grown man at the point of a pistol faded next to the thought of bringing her with him into this scabby, stinking cesspit of humanity. A child shouldn’t even know places like this public house existed.
The noise—composed of drunken male shouting, drunken female shrieking, and drunken puking from both sexes—forced him to give up on any civilized form of communication. Oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound.
He leaped to stand on the most crowded trestle table, casually kicking mugs of stale ale into the laps of the unsavory clientele. It was likely the closest they had come to a bath in months, so he counted it as a favor to the world in general. He hefted one of the tipped mugs, then threw it across the room to shatter against the stone fireplace. It exploded loudly enough to catch the attention of all but the most cataleptic sots.
“Oy!” The innkeeper, identified by an apron that ought to have been burned for violations of basic human cleanliness, strode forward. He was a big fellow, nearly as big as Calder himself. He was backed by enough men that the sheer poundage would be enough to defeat Calder’s desperation and fighting skills. Then again, he could be quite the bastard when he drank. He swept up another mug and drained the nasty ale in one swallow. Then gagged.
Bloody hell. “Bloody hell.” It felt rather relieving to say it out loud. He tried it again. “Bloody fucking hell.” He wiped his mouth. “This swill isn’t fit for fucking pigs.”
The innkeeper reddened. “Toff bastard. Let’s teach ’im what for, lads!” The mob, well-lubricated by swill-ale and general hatred for the Quality, moved forward en masse, surrounding the table.
Bloody hell.
Calder jumped high and grabbed the beam overhead with both hands. He took out the innkeeper with two bootheels high in the chest and then swung himself up to stand on the beam, bracing himself with one hand on the ceiling. Dirty, sweating, upturned faces swirled beneath. He saw a pair of eyes just like his own …
Meggie.
“Bloody hell.”
Meggie frowned up at him. “What’re you doing up there?” Her high voice piped clearly above the murderous mutterings of the crowd. “I thought you came in to get help for Dee.”
The surly rabble turned as one to gaze in astonishment at the tiny, well-dressed girl-child in their midst. She glared back at them with equal or perhaps even superior surliness, but they were a hardened lot and scarcely seemed to notice. They had no idea who they were dealing with—a fortunate thing, for Lady Margaret Marbrook, daughter of a wealthy marquis, would make for a fetching bit of kidnapping—witness the reason he was here in the first place!
“Meggie, up!”
She didn’t hesitate but clambered right onto the table he’d emptied with his ill manners. She stood and reached her hand high. He dropped to his knees on the wide beam and swept her up beside him before any of the scum realized what she was about.
Meggie balanced calmly next to him and surveyed their situation with no apparent fear of the height. “You’ve buggered it now, Papa.”
“Yes, it would seem so.”
She patted his
arm. “Don’t worry.” She reached into the puffed bodice of her little dress and pulled out the pistol.
He reached for the firearm, but she pulled it out of his reach. “Wait …” She gazed up at him soberly for a moment. “Papa, do you trust me?”
God, she couldn’t do any worse now than he had. And she was right. They were buggered. He nodded. “I trust you.”
She grinned evilly. “Just pretend you’re … well, not you. All right?”
“I think I can do it. I’ve been practicing,” he said seriously.
She patted his arm again. “I’ll help you.” Then she turned to face down into the pub. “Oy!” she shouted. Again, her clear childish soprano cut through the noise like a fine knife through privy-muck. The mob gave her their surly attention.
She waved the pistol. The attention grew more sullen but the room quieted somewhat. “We need men to search the Heath. You’ve all just volunteered.”
The innkeeper was still down, so the second largest man took it upon himself to be the leader of the mob. “Who’re you t’be tellin’ us what to do? You’re a child.”
Meggie laughed rudely. “I’m not a child. I’m the meanest pygmy you’ve ever met.”
It was so ridiculous that it would have been laughable—if the dwarf hadn’t been waving a gigantic pistol with complete ease. There was something rather convincing about cold steel and gunpowder.
The man, who also seemed to be the mental giant of the crew, came up with what he thought was a vital point. “Yer wearin’ a little girl’s dress.”
Meggie widened her eyes gleefully. “Stole it, I did,” she growled. “Right off’n the little girl I killed with this very pistol!”
Calder closed his eyes briefly in apology to anyone who had ever tried to get Meggie to speak properly. It was going to be a long road back to propriety after this. Then he joined in—in his own voice. “She did. I saw her. She killed several people, actually. She killed the man I stole these clothes from. She kills often. I think she likes it.” He glanced down at his little daughter in her stockings and tiny buttoned boots. “She wears the dress to make ladies think she’s lost—and then she robs them.”
Meggie shot him a glance of respectful appreciation. He nearly took pleasure in it, until he remembered it was for spouting atrocious untruths. She grinned down at the men. “So, who wants to try me aim first?”
The big fellow shifted restlessly as his gaze flicked about him. Now that he’d taken up the job of spokesman, he seemed to realize that this also made him something of a target. “Well … what you searchin’ the Heath for anyway?”
“My—me sister,” Meggie replied. “She was took by a man—a bastard toff—and he’s hidin’ in the Heath.”
The man rubbed his unshaven chin for a moment. “I had me a sister once. I reckon I’d want to find the toff what took ’er.”
The man next to him snickered. “Yeah, so ye could hit the blighter up for a quid!”
With a swing of his giant fist, the spokesman struck down the wit standing next to him without so much as glancing at him first. Then he gazed up at Meggie and Calder. Calder could almost hear the clockworks grinding away in his head.
“Say we find the toff and yer sister—you say you been out robbin’ ladies. What you got to trade?”
Desperation welled up, choking Calder. God, they were wasting too much time here! He pulled his purse from his pocket and jingled it. “Gold. We stole gold from the ladies. You can share it all if you find my—her sister. I have more elsewhere I can give you after.”
Meggie closed one eye and aimed the pistol directly at the big man. “Or you can die now.”
Damned if she didn’t sound completely serious. Calder hid a slight shudder.
The man held up both hands. “No need for that, missy—er, ma‘am. Why, we’ll be ’appy to ’elp, won’t we, lads?”
The ridiculous story, the pistol, the gold—Calder didn’t much care what had convinced the lot of them to try. He simply took the gun from Meggie, swung back down to land feet first on the table and reached to catch his daughter as she flung herself trustingly into his arms. Unwilling to put her down in the milling herd of heavy boots, he put her on his shoulder. She wrapped her hands under his chin to hold on.
“Come on, then! Quickly now!”
They left the inn and went into the night, an army of the unwashed exhorted to speed by the curses of a little girl who was very nearly a princess of the realm.
The unlucky innkeeper and the half-wit were left on the floor to sleep off their misfortune.
Chapter Forty-nine
When Graham, Sophie, Stickey and Patricia reached Hampstead Heath, they found it alive with men and torches. Before they could ask for Lord Brookhaven, Sophie and Graham were captured—a sister and a toff, right?—and dragged before Calder.
He turned from his torchlit search to blink at them both, then at Stickley and Patricia, who had warily followed behind. “What—”
“Bodicea’s Barrow,” Sophie blurted, smacking away the hands that held her. Surrounded by rough men, her worst nightmare come to life, she didn’t know whether to scream or laugh hysterically. The only thing that mattered was to find Deirdre, but she could scarcely make her mouth form words!
She felt Graham take her hand in his, a warm link to someone safe. Her heartbeat steadied. “Baskin’s taken her to Bodicea’s Barrow—his sacred place! It’s in all his poetry!”
Calder’s eyes lit with hope. “Yes, of course! Everyone, to the Barrow!”
“Oy,” the man holding her protested. “I’m not goin’ there!”
Other protests came from all around them. “It’s a grave, ain’t it? We orn’t goin’ to step on no grave at midnight!”
Calder had no time for such nonsense. With a quick look of gratitude toward Sophie—beautiful, brilliant Sophie!—he grabbed the spindly, swaybacked mount of the man nearest him and swung astride it. He kicked the protesting man aside with one boot.
“Stealing your horse. My apologies.” This crime thing was becoming a habit.
The barrow was a mound in the southeast portion of the heath. Whether Queen Bodicea of old was truly buried there or not, legend had her bones lying there for hundreds of years. The mound was large, with a copse of full-grown trees on top. Calder knew that the superstitious believed that Bodicea walked the earth at night, bemoaning her betrayal and the betrayal of her daughters.
At that moment, he didn’t bloody care.
The night was complete and moonless. Calder finally had to pull his mount to a fast walk, for the poor beast had no stamina and the path was not easy.
At last he found the barrow—and at the top, he saw the faintest gleam of a light, like a lantern nearly out of oil.
Calder flung himself from the horse, hitting the ground and scrambling on all fours to reach her. She lay a few feet away from a body—Baskin’s—but Calder only had eyes for her still white form.
Just as he was about to pull her roughly into his arms, Graham ran up with a fresh lantern in hand. The sight of so much blood soaking through her gown froze Calder in mid-reach.
“Oh, Papa, she’s bleeding so!”
That small horrified exclamation rang through the sudden silence of all those gathered around the still pale body on the ground.
Calder reached a trembling hand to brush the fallen golden hair away from that lovely, marble face. Her skin chilled his fingers.
Deirdre wasn’t hurt. Deirdre was dead.
Calder’s breath left him. Lost. All that fierce pride and vulnerability, all that shimmering beauty and defiant loyalty, gone forever—because of him.
Slowly, carefully, as if she would shatter in his hands, he drew her into his arms. “Oh, my beautiful darling … don’t leave me, I beg of you. Don’t leave me … alone.”
“Papa … are you crying?”
Tucking Deirdre’s cool face into his neck, he pulled her onto his lap, sprawling awkwardly in the dirt and dead leaves. In the circle of watchers who stoo
d in the lantern light, no one moved a muscle as they watched the great proud man heave rasping sobs of heartbreak into his wife’s flaxen hair.
Chapter Fifty
Deirdre opened her eyes to find herself in a creamy satin heaven. That is, if heaven contained slightly grubby, dark-haired urchins who glared at her from the foot of the bed.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Deirdre blinked and very carefully laid her palm to the wound in her belly. The pain radiated outward, pulsating through her until she wondered faintly why she wasn’t screaming. “I think I wish I were,” she rasped.
Meggie narrowed her dark eyes and folded her arms. She looked bloody annoyed. Knowing from whose loins the child sprang, Deirdre guessed that the little girl was actually desperately worried.
She tried to smile. “I’m all right.” She didn’t feel all right. She felt shaky and chilled and weak—and the hole in her body seemed to be larger than it once was. “They took the bullet out?”
Meggie scowled. “I wanted to keep it, but Papa made me leave the room.”
“That’s too bad,” Deirdre said faintly. “How terrible for you.”
Meggie dropped her pose and picked at the coverlet with her well-chewed nails. “The physician did it.”
“Better he than Fortescue, I suppose.”
Meggie didn’t look up. “He said you might die anyway.”
Suddenly Deirdre no longer wished an end to her pain anytime soon. “I showed him, then.”
Meggie continued her fascination with the stitching on the coverlet. “I could be your little girl … if you wanted.”
Deirdre tried to smile. “Meggie, I’m happy to hear that, but I’m really very tired—”
“Since you can’t have any babies now.”
Ah. It seemed she’d only thought she knew pain before. Now the real agony seared through her. She closed her eyes against it, but she was too weak to fight the small aching sound that escaped her lips. No children of her own.
Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02] Page 24
