by Jane Feather
“Rescue Abigail, of course. What else would be so urgent that I’d have to chase all over town looking for you?” She heard the snap in her own voice and sighed. “Forgive me, I’m so worried, and time’s getting short.”
“Give me a minute.” Sebastian set aside his épée and sat down on the bench that ran the length of the salon to put on his boots, then reached for his coat. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“Well, it’s all to do with the moleskin waistcoat,” Serena began.
“You’re talking in riddles,” Sebastian responded, a snap in his own voice. “Just give me the facts, or whatever it is you know or suspect.”
Serena nodded, accepting the rebuke as due. “There’s a man who wears a moleskin waistcoat whom the general uses for his least savory errands.” She gave a slightly bitter little laugh. “When you run a gambling house, there are quite a few of them.”
The brothers said nothing.
“He only ever comes to the house when there’s trouble in the offing. And he’s been in the house twice. Once yesterday, and he was there in the library with the general this morning when I left. I asked Flanagan to listen to as much as he could of what was said. They talked of a postchaise, fast horses, frequent changes … a journey, it would seem.”
“A reasonable conclusion,” Sebastian agreed.
“Then he told me he was going away for a few days … and then I had this note from Abigail.” She handed Sebastian the letter.
He read it, frowning. “So you think he’s intending to abduct Abigail?”
“Not without her consent,” Serena said. “Why else would she be planning to disappear and need me to lie for her? Doesn’t that make sense?”
“Up to a point, but why in the world would Abigail agree to such a plan? For God’s sake, she’s just announced her engagement to Jonas Wedgwood.”
“Blackmail,” she said succinctly. “’Tis a speciality of the general’s.”
Peregrine had no idea who Abigail was, but he understood blackmail. He glanced at his twin, who was rereading the letter in his hand. “Supposing you’re right, where would they go?”
“Flanagan said he heard Finchley Common mentioned, which seems to imply they’re going north … Gretna Green, perhaps?”
“We have a damsel in distress, it would seem,” Perry murmured. “Had we better launch a hue and cry?”
Sebastian tapped his mouth with his fingertips, thinking. “Finchley Common,” he murmured. “And Abigail says she’ll need you to lie for her from four o’clock this afternoon. How long for a chaise to reach Finchley Common, d’you think, Perry?”
His twin frowned. “An hour and a half, perhaps.”
“Then we need to be in position by soon after five o’clock.”
“Doable.” Perry nodded.
“Position for what?” Serena demanded, feeling lost. She had sought help but perversely now felt as if she was being excluded.
“A hold-up.” Sebastian’s blue eyes were suddenly sparkling. For the first time, he could see his way to the end of this nightmare, to having his wife finally to himself.
“Oh.” Serena’s own eyes widened. “We stage a hold-up on the Common to rescue Abigail. What a clever idea.”
“There’s no we in this,” Sebastian said calmly.
“Oh, yes, there is. Abigail needs a chaperone. You may do all the pistol-waving, make-believe robbery if you wish, but I need to be there to escort her back home, to maintain the fiction. The truth must not come out.”
“Serena has a point there, Seb,” Perry put in.
Sebastian didn’t bother to argue. He said only, “As long as you promise not to get involved in anything with your stepfather, you may come.”
“My thanks, husband.” She dropped a mock curtsy, a flash in her eye, but he merely laughed and headed for the door, so she had no choice but to follow him meekly.
Outside, Sebastian consulted with Peregrine. “On horseback, we’ll do the journey much faster than a coach and horses, particularly through town. I doubt it’ll take us an hour. Do go to the mews and bring the mounts to the house. I’ll fetch weapons.”
“I’ll fetch my horse and meet you at Stratton Street,” Serena said. “Do you have masks? You can’t be an unmasked highwayman.”
“We’ve been to enough masked balls in our time to have quite a collection,” Peregrine said. “Never fear, Serena, we will look the part, I promise.”
“And so, I promise, will I. Believe me, I’ve made enough clandestine journeys in my time to know how to wear a disguise.” She hurried away before either of them could say anything more.
Sebastian shook his head. “I wouldn’t change one iota about her, but I don’t think I’m in for a quiet life.”
“I don’t doubt it. I’ll go to the mews.”
Under the promise of action, all Serena’s anxieties seemed to evaporate. As she ran up the steps to the front door, she noticed absently a strange horse tethered to the railings. Flanagan let her in, and she asked swiftly, “Has the general left yet?”
“Aye, m’lady … some twenty minutes past.”
She nodded. “Would you send to the mews for my horse? I’ll be down straightway.”
“Yes, m’lady, but you have a visitor.”
“A visitor?” She stopped with one foot on the bottom stair.
“A Mr. Wedgwood, he said, ma’am. He wanted to wait, so I showed him into your parlor.”
This is going to complicate matters, Serena thought as she hurried up the stairs. She went into her parlor to find Jonas standing by the window, looking down into the street.
“This is an unexpected pleasure, Jonas,” she said, closing the door at her back. “But I’m afraid ’tis not really convenient at present. I have an urgent engagement.”
He turned towards her. “I understood Abigail was here with you. She wasn’t with you when you came down the street. Where is she?”
Serena sighed. It wasn’t four o’clock yet. Abigail’s note must have been found earlier than she’d expected. “What made you think she was with me?” she temporized.
“She left a note for her mother. I went to see how she was doing half an hour ago, because of the headache, you understand, and was told that she’d recovered sufficiently to come and visit you. So where is she?” He sounded a little belligerent, and Serena couldn’t really blame him. But how was she to get around this?
“I expect she’s on her way,” she offered.
“But you said you have an urgent engagement,” he persisted. “Lady Serena, I know when people are not telling me the truth. Something’s wrong, and I think you know what it is.”
“Oh, to hell with it,” Serena exclaimed, ignoring the momentary look of shock on Jonas’s face. “Yes, something is wrong. But I have every hope that it will be put right without delay.”
“Go on.” He was rather pale, his face set, but she could see that he had himself well in hand.
She told him the whole story, watching his expression change from bewilderment to incredulity and finally to blazing anger.
“I’ll kill him … forgive me, Lady Serena, I know he’s your stepfather, but of all the despicable, vile vermin … my poor darling must be terrified. I will kill him.”
“You’ll be standing in quite a queue to do so,” she said. “Is that your horse tethered outside?”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“Then wait here. I’ll only be a minute.” She left him pacing and ran to her own chamber. She flung open the armoire, pulling out the leather breeches that she wore beneath her divided riding skirt. They strapped under her feet, inside her boots. Waistcoat and jacket and finally her black hooded cloak completed her costume change. She was halfway to the door again when she remembered. Masks … Jonas would need one, too. She took two domino masks from a drawer and flew back to the parlor.
“Here, Jonas. You’ll need this if you’re going to play highwayman.” She thrust the mask at him.
He took it in bewilderment. “Highwayman
?”
Serena explained Sebastian’s plan, and his expression cleared. “A capital plan. There’s not a moment to lose.”
They rode fast to Stratton Street, where Sebastian and Peregrine were just mounting. Sebastian raised his eyebrows when he saw Jonas, and he looked a question at Serena.
“Jonas was waiting for me. Abigail’s note must have been found earlier than she’d expected. Anyway, he’s coming with us.”
“The more the merrier,” Peregrine said. “Do you have a firearm, Mr. Wedgwood?”
“Not on me.”
Sebastian dismounted. “Just a moment.” He disappeared into the house and came back with an elegant dueling pistol. He handed it up to Jonas. “It throws a little to the left, so watch for it.”
Jonas thrust the weapon into his belt, and the little party set off. They rode in silence for the most part, threading their way through the busy city streets heading north. The traffic lessened as they left the hub of the town behind them and rode through the village of Hampstead and across the heath. There were few vehicles on the single road across the heath, and they paused at the Bull and Bush Inn, where coaches often stopped for refreshment. Sebastian went in and came out after a minute. “They say no coaches have been by in the last hour.”
“So we must be ahead of them,” Peregrine said, and they rode on, fast and in silence.
The weak November sun was dipping behind the horizon when they reached the village of Finchley and the Common stretching just beyond it, bisected by a single narrow, rutted track.
As soon as Abigail had received Serena’s succinct answer to her request, she struggled to compose her own note to her mother. It was almost impossible to explain why she hadn’t asked her mother in person for permission to visit Lady Serena and even more so why she had gone unaccompanied to Pickering Place. She settled for a simple statement of facts, without explanation. Once this horror was over, they would know everything, anyway. A tear splashed on the paper, and she blotted it with her handkerchief. She had no idea how she was going to escape from the general, but there would surely be an opportunity. They would have to stop along the road; they couldn’t journey all night without at least changing the horses. And they would need to rest and refresh themselves. There would be other people around. Maybe she could throw herself on someone’s mercy. All was not lost yet.
She tucked the general’s incriminating letter into the pocket of her pelisse, put her own letter on the dresser, where her mother or Matty would be sure to see it when they came in later to see if she was well enough to come down for dinner, then slipped quietly into the corridor outside her chamber. The house was very quiet. Mama was usually resting on her bed at this hour, before beginning her evening toilette. Her father would be dozing by the fire in the library, resting from the day’s business. The kitchen was the only busy part of the house until the maids began to light the lamps, draw the curtains, make up the fires. Praying that Morrison was in his butler’s pantry at this hour and not watching over the hall, she crept down the stairs on tiptoe, darted across the empty expanse of parquet, fumbled the door open, and stepped outside into the cold afternoon, closing the door softly behind her.
It was only half past three, but she had wanted to leave a few minutes in hand in case she was held up. She half ran up the street towards Berkeley Square, anxious to get out of sight of the house. She rounded the corner. There was no sign as yet of the promised coach. She crossed the road and let herself into the square garden through the gate in the railings. No one would remark her in there. She had made one circuit of the garden when a closed carriage lumbered into the square and came to a halt against the railings opposite Bruton Street. She left the garden and approached the carriage, her heart thudding, a nut of nausea in her throat. Two men were on the box, a coachman and a man carrying a blunderbuss across his knees. A postilion rode the nearside leader. As she reached the vehicle the door swung open.
“You are punctual, my dear. I like that in a wife.” The general reached out a hand to help her inside. “Sit down, now, make yourself comfortable. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Abigail huddled into a corner as far from her tormentor as she could get. She said nothing, indeed, had sworn to herself that she would not speak one word to him, however long the journey took.
Heyward sat back against the squabs, regarding her though narrowed eyes. She was a pretty enough child, he supposed, but insipid and naïve. He felt no desire for her at all, not at all the way he had felt with his late wife. Ah, Serena’s mother had been a real beauty, promising a sensuality that, to his dismay, he had eventually realized she didn’t really possess. But in the early days, he’d been wild for her … couldn’t get enough of her. It had paled, of course, as it always did. But this one was merely a means to an end. Once the marriage was consummated, he would have no interest in her body at all.
It grew dark as they passed out of the town and crossed Hampstead Heath. Abigail tried to close her eyes, to let the rhythm of the carriage lull her to sleep, but the road was too bumpy, and her mind was too busy, planning and discarding schemes for escape. How soon before they made the first change? It would be her first opportunity, and if it was still relatively close to London, so much the better. But she refused to ask.
The general seemed content to leave her with her silence. He took frequent pulls from a silver flask he kept in the pocket of his great coat and closed his eyes once or twice, but whenever she shifted in her seat, those eyes would open, and their gaze would be as sharp as ever.
They were traveling in near-complete darkness as they left a little village and began to climb a hill. Abigail sat up to lift aside the leather curtain at the window, wondering if she could see anything that would help her identify where they were. It wasn’t quite as dark as she’d feared. A half-moon swung in and out of light cloud cover, and every once in a while, the clouds would part to reveal a star-studded sky. The general took another swallow from his flask.
“Are you hungry, my dear?”
The sound of his voice made her skin crawl. She wondered whether if she said she was hungry, they would stop sooner. But she still was not ready to speak.
“If you are, you’ll find a hamper beneath the seat,” he said. “I do not intend to stop for food until we are well on our way to the Border.”
So they were going to Gretna Green. Maybe there was something useful in the hamper. Abigail leaned down and pulled out the wicker container. She set it on the seat beside her and lifted the lid. There was a paring knife. Small, certainly, but it could inflict some damage. If he fell asleep properly, perhaps …
She took out a meat pie and retreated into her corner with it. There was no point starving herself. She held the curtain aside with one hand so that she could see outside; it gave her some sense of comfort.
The coach jolted over the top of the hill and picked up speed as the track straightened out. Through the window, Abigail could make out the shapes of bushes and tree branches waving in the sharpening evening breeze but no sign of habitation.
She had just finished her pie when a single shot was fired, followed almost immediately by the massive report of a blunderbuss. The horses reared, the carriage swayed, and for a moment, she thought it would overturn, but it righted itself as a voice said, “Look to your horses, man, before they get tangled in the traces.”
The general was leaning out of the far window. “What the devil’s going on?”
Swift as a flash, Abigail had tucked the paring knife into her sleeve. She sat forward on the bench.
The door on the general’s side was opened, and a masked man stood with one foot on the step, a pistol in his hand. He regarded the passengers. Abigail knew those blue eyes, and they were sending her a clear message of reassurance. “Would you step down, sir?”
The general’s hand went to his pocket, and in almost the same movement, the pistol was pressing into his throat, its owner leaning into the carriage, his eyes filled with loathing.
“I will fire this, make no mistake, sir.”
Abigail watched, mesmerized. General Heyward seemed to shrink into himself, becoming a fraction of his size. Another figure appeared behind Sebastian, another pair of the same startling blue eyes, and for a moment, she wondered if she was mistaken after all. It wasn’t Sebastian Sullivan who’d come to her rescue but someone just like him … or, rather, two of them.
“Does our friend require a little assistance?” the other masked man inquired. Even his voice was like Sebastian’s, and Abigail belatedly remembered that two of the Sullivan brothers were twins.
“Oh, I think the gentleman will see the wisdom in cooperating,” Sebastian said coolly, the pistol still pressed to Heyward’s throat. “Ma’am, would you step out of the carriage through the other door?”
The door behind her opened, and she gazed in amazement at another man and then tumbled into his arms, murmuring, “Jonas, you came. ’Tis really you.”
“Aye, love, ’tis really me.” He cradled her against him. “Has he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No … he hasn’t touched me.” She stepped away from him, looking around. A slender figure on horseback, masked like the others, held a pistol on the coachman, the guard, and the postilion as they struggled to calm the pitching horses. “Is that …?”
“Lady Serena? Yes,” Jonas said with a soft chuckle. “She will return with you to London, and no one will be any the wiser.”
“Come now, sir. Which is it to be?” Sebastian spoke harshly. “If I have to shoot you as you sit, then so be it. But I had not thought you a coward.”
At that, the general bellowed and lunged forward, grabbing the barrel of the pistol, forcing it to one side. He aimed a blow at Sebastian’s chin. Sebastian ducked it neatly, letting Peregrine move in over his head, sending a fist into Heyward’s jaw. The general stumbled and half fell from the carriage to land on his knees.
Sebastian stood over him, the pistol pointed. “I would prefer to kill you with my sword. Will you stand up, sir? I cannot shoot a man on the ground.”
Heyward pushed himself to his feet. His normally rubicund countenance was gray in the pale moonlight. He brushed at the dust on the full skirts of his coat. “What is this? Who the devil are you?”
