Mentally shrugging away that particular problem, he took a deep breath and sprinted across to the mill where, exhaling slowly, he stood for several minutes, knee deep in the nettle bed, his back pressed up hard against the crumbling brickwork, waiting anxiously for any sign that his movements had been detected. Since there seemed to be no danger of imminent discovery, he sidled cautiously round the mill’s base, his eyes and ears constantly alert for any sudden attack.
Upon reaching the bottom of the short flight of stone steps leading up to the mill’s entrance, he caught a flash of movement from one of the barns opposite and, screwing up his eyes to peer across into the gloom of its interior, he was just able to make out the rear of the instantly recognisable black carriage. At the same time, he also became aware of the murmur of a man’s voice and, hesitating no longer, swiftly crossed the open space that separated the two buildings. Flattening himself against the wall of the barn from which the sound had emitted, he inched his way along the wall until he was at the doorway.
Standing with his back to Latimer, a short, stocky individual was caressing the nose of one of the pair of, now unhitched, horses that were housed inside the derelict barn.
‘Still tired out, me ol’ beauty?’ the man was saying, his voice low and gentle. ‘And not a drop of water to be had, it seems. Bad show, that’s what I calls it, ain’t it, me darlin’?’
Latimer did not stop to consider his actions. He leapt forward and, as his left hand spun the unsuspecting fellow round to face him, his right hand doubled into an iron-like fist that caught the startled driver square on the chin and laid him, prostrate, at Latimer’s feet. Ripping off his stock, Latimer lashed the unconscious man’s hands together behind his back and hauled him into a sitting position. For what seemed an interminable length of time, Latimer watched as the driver’s head remained slumped against his chest until, with a little moan, the man opened his eyes and attempted to focus them on his assailant.
‘Wha’—wha’s goin’ on?’ he slurred.
‘That’s just what I’d like to know,’ replied Latimer, in a glacial tone. ‘Perhaps you would care to enlighten me?’
The man looked puzzled.
‘What have you done with Miss Cunningham?’ Latimer demanded curtly and, hardly able to contain his fury, he reached forward and, grabbing the man by the throat, he hissed, ‘I’m warning you! Do you want more of the same?’
‘’Ave an ’eart, guv,’ pleaded his victim. ‘I swear to God I never laid an ’and on the mort! I were only doin’ what the swell paid me for! Said as ’ow his missus ’ad run orf and promised to gave me ten guineas, so ’e did, to ’elp him collar ’er an’ fetch ’er to this ’ere mill! Said he wanted to teach ’er a lesson, ’e did!’
Latimer shuddered and his eyes narrowed as he stared down vengefully at the cringing individual. ‘Who was it—this swell?’ he asked roughly. ‘Has he got her inside?’
The driver nodded his head. ‘Never gave me ’is name, yer honour, sir, and soon as we got ’ere ’e took ’is missus straight up into that there mill. Never ’eard a peep out of neither one of ’em since then,’ he added. ‘And nary a sound from ’em the whole time they was in the cab—’e just pulls ’er in and then carries ’er out—and she never spoke not a single solitary word—not as I ’eard, any’ ow, guv!’
Latimer swallowed and chewed at his lower lip. ‘The lady was conscious, I take it?’ he asked hoarsely.
The man shrugged. ‘Couldn’t tell, sir. She were sort of walkin’ when he got ’er into the cab, but then she flops over and ’e just ups and carries ’er in when we got ’ere so I can’t rightly say. Told me to mind my business and see to the ’orses, ’e did—elsewise I don’t get paid!’
‘Payment is the last thing you should be worrying about at the moment,’ retorted Latimer savagely, pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket. ‘You’ll very likely end up on the gallows for your part in this day’s work!’
The man’s eyes darkened with fear. ‘No, sir, I swear—’ But the rest of his words were cut off as Latimer rudely silenced him with his makeshift gag. Then, as he glanced quickly around for something to tie the fellow’s legs together, Latimer’s eyes lighted upon an empty nosebag beside the wheel of the carriage. Thrusting the moaning driver’s feet inside the bag, he wrapped its strap tightly around the man’s ankles and made for the door.
Just as he was about to leave, however, a sudden thought occurred to him; pausing, he turned back, leaned menacingly over his victim and demanded, ‘Your weapon—where do you keep it?’
Flinching, the driver jerked his head towards the driving box of the carriage and watched fearfully as his captor extracted the bag containing his pistol and shot from beneath the seat and, after weighing the weapon carefully in his hand, primed it ready for use.
‘Now, my fine fellow,’ said Latimer, ‘what becomes of you after this very much depends on whether any harm has befallen Miss Cunningham—I advise you to sit there quietly and pray!’ and, grimly cognisant of the awful prospect that lay before him, he left the building.
Chapter Sixteen
Georgina was, at first, only dimly aware of being half-dragged, half-carried out of the lych-porch and of then being thrust rudely into the darkened confines of a musty-smelling carriage. Fighting to maintain her grip on reality, she was desperately afraid of passing out once again; although the back of her head was throbbing in the most excruciating manner and black waves of nausea constantly threatened to overcome her, she struggled to right herself from the uncomfortable and ungainly position on the seat into which Carstairs had so casually tossed her. Through half-closed eyes she perceived that the leather window curtains had been pulled down, which accounted for the gloom of the carriage’s interior. What little light there was seemed to be coming from the small window behind the driver’s seat although, as she could just make out, the width of his driving cape seemed to have obscured most of that. She sensed, rather than saw, that Carstairs was sitting opposite her and, also, that the carriage was now on the move, its rocking, jerky sway causing her to suffer even greater discomfort.
Her head fell against the seat’s straw-filled squab but, as it made contact with the tough leather surface behind her, she winced with shock and was unable to prevent the tiny sob of pain that emitted from her lips.
Carstairs was instantly alerted. ‘I trust you’ve recovered, my sweetling?’ he said, in a mocking tone. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Not feeling quite so clever now, are we?’
His hand reached out, fumbled for her knee and squeezed it. ‘Never mind, my cherub—you shall have a nice little sip from my flask and you’ll soon feel as right as rain!’
He swung himself over on to the seat beside her and, thrusting the flask towards her face, attempted to force some of its contents between her lips. Clenching her teeth and recoiling in disgust as some of the fiery spirit hit the back of her throat, Georgina managed to spit out most of the liquid, causing it to dribble down her chin and on to her bodice. As a violent paroxysm of coughing overcame her, her eyes watered and she was barely able to take a breath. Totally unmoved at the discomfort he had caused her, Carstairs took a hefty swig of the brandy himself and moved closer to her. She could feel his hot, rancid breath on her cheek and strove to find some way to distract him from his obvious intent.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ she moaned fretfully. ‘I-I do believe I am going to be sick!’
With a stifled oath, Carstairs at once sprang away from her and returned to his own seat.
To her surprise, the tiny amount of brandy that had found its way past her lips did, indeed, seem to be having a slight restorative effect upon her dizziness but, having quickly deduced from Carstairs’s instant reaction to her threat that he could well be one of that group of people to whom all signs of illness were a total anathema, she determined to keep up her exaggerated moaning and groaning, at least until they arrived at whatever destination he was intending to convey her. During this temporary respite she endeavoured t
o make sense of what had happened. Surely, she thought, not even the most dissolute rake would go to such inordinate lengths simply to have his uninterrupted way with an unwilling female, but what other reason could there possibly be for such an outrageous abduction? And what, she wondered fearfully, did the fiend intend to do with her after he had succeeded in his foul violation of her person? For, as she had frequently noted in her reading of the newspapers, there was usually only one likely outcome to this sort of crime. Another wave of nausea swept over her as she forced herself to confront this unwelcome probability, but determined, nevertheless, not to give in without a struggle and prayed that, should she be obliged to suffer the ultimate degradation, at least her end might be quick and merciful. Until then, however, she had no intention of abandoning hope for, surely, Rupert must have noted the return of the black carriage, seen it parked outside the church and, thereby, connected it with his sister’s disappearance. And, what could have happened to Latimer? Why hadn’t he turned up to meet her, as arranged? Would he still want her when—or, more precisely, if—this nightmare was over? Her mind was in a turmoil of confusion.
The journey, although acutely uncomfortable, was unexpectedly short. Georgina’s brain was soon hard at work trying to figure out where Carstairs could have brought her but, as soon as the carriage halted and he had flung open the door, she was able to recognise almost immediately that they were in the weed-choked yard of the long-since abandoned Pepper’s Mill, which was scarcely a mile from the village! As children, both she and her brother Harry, along with Katharine and Nell and many of their other young friends, had, unbeknown to their fondly unsuspecting parents, often frequented the derelict site, which they had regarded as an ideal setting for acting out their favourite adventures and fairy tales.
For one precious moment, she allowed her mind to linger on those happy, childhood memories, but was soon rudely returned to reality when she felt the painful grip of Carstairs’s hand on her arm. As he proceeded to haul her, none too gently, out of the carriage, she realised that this would, most probably, be her one and only chance of saving herself from the lecher’s devilish scheme to deflower her. On a sudden impulse, she let out a low moaning sigh, then allowed herself to slump sideways against his portly figure and slide limply to the ground at his feet.
For one moment a feeling of stupefied horror swept over Carstairs as he looked down at his victim’s supine form then, sensing the driver’s curious eyes upon him, he jerked his head in the direction of the outbuildings. ‘Get your carriage into one of those barns,’ he instructed him curtly. ‘And stay out of sight until you’re called.’
Thereupon, he bent down and, gathering the recumbent Georgina up into his arms, he turned towards the mill and stumbled awkwardly towards the stone steps that led up to its entrance. Forcing herself to lie passive and lifeless against his chest, she felt him mount the steps and lean his weight against the heavy oak door, endeavouring to push it open with his shoulder.
After several unsuccessful attempts to persuade its rusty hinges to respond to his exertions, he was obliged to lay his burden down in front of him and apply his full strength to the task. Gradually the door grated inwards with a protesting screech and, after he had paused momentarily in order to recover his breath, Carstairs lifted Georgina’s still-unresisting form from the ground. Hoisting her over his shoulder, he squeezed his way through the narrow gap and staggered into the ground floor of the ramshackle tower.
Savage vituperations poured from his lips as he dumped his seemingly still-unconscious burden unceremoniously down on to a discarded heap of dirty sacking that lay on the far side of the room and, puffing and grunting at the unaccustomed effort he had been required to make, he sank to his knees at Georgina’s side.
Tensing herself for what she believed would almost certainly be Carstairs’s imminent attack upon her person, Georgina lay motionless at his side, racking her brains to conjure up some way of delaying the inevitable. She knew that she could not continue indefinitely with her spurious state of unconsciousness and was well aware that even Carstairs, who had already struck her as being of somewhat meagre intelligence, would eventually grow suspicious.
Almost as though he had read her thoughts, her abductor jabbed at her arm with his forefinger and she responded with a little groan, at the same time allowing her eyes to flutter open before closing them once more.
‘Wake up, girl, for God’s sake!’ Carstairs proclaimed angrily and gave her a violent shove. ‘You weren’t that badly hurt, I’m certain—open your eyes this instant!’
Georgina raised a limp hand to her brow and slowly opened her eyes. ‘Oh, my head!’ she sighed, keeping her voice pitifully weak. ‘Water—I beg you—water!’
Carstairs jumped to his feet and, after pointlessly casting his eyes around their dimly lit surroundings in the hope of locating some hidden source of water, stared down at her incredulously, snarling, ‘Water! We ain’t got any water here, you stupid wench!’
Gingerly, Georgina raised herself to a sitting position. ‘Wh-where am I?’ she moaned fretfully, then, looking up at him with wide innocent eyes, she asked ingeniously, ‘Wh-who are you, sir, and h-how did I come to be here? H-have I been in some sort of—accident?’
Carstairs clapped a hand to his brow and let out a splenetic growl of fury. ‘Get up, girl!’ he commanded her ferociously and, leaning forward, heaved Georgina roughly to her feet. ‘Walk about for a bit until your head clears—eh? That’s the ticket!’
He glared at her, but could see that there was no earthly point in trying to proceed with his seduction if the silly wench was going to keep swooning away at his feet. Where would be the fun in that? He had been counting on coming up against a good deal of spirited resistance from this little poppet, which, to his way of thinking, would have been guaranteed to add a whole extra dimension to the venture.
Pretending to stagger about the room on shaky limbs whilst remembering, at the same time, to feign the occasional state of near-collapse and lean weakly against the wall of the circular room, Georgina gradually managed to edge her way back towards the door, which Carstairs, having been somewhat encumbered upon entering, had omitted to close behind him. If I can only get outside again, she thought hopefully, the man is so clearly out of condition that, perhaps, in the open, I might stand some chance of getting away from him.
Carstairs, having sat down on the sacks once more, had pulled out his flask and was busily engaged in quaffing the remains of the brandy and did not, initially, seem to realise what his captive was up to but, unfortunately for Georgina, the loud creaking of a floorboard that she had inadvertently stepped upon immediately recalled him to the task in hand. Looking up, he realised at once what she was about and, with an angry yell, dropped his flask, stumbled to his feet and, in three strides, had covered the distance between them just as Georgina reached the gap in the doorway, whereupon he stretched out his arm and pushed her violently to one side managing, at the same time, to kick the door shut, too.
‘An amazingly swift recovery, my clever little dove!’ he sneered, breathing noxious fumes into her face. ‘Ready for a more vigorous activity now, are we?’
Georgina found herself pinioned against the door with Carstairs, his hands on either side of the lintel, leaning towards her. As he lowered his head and began to nuzzle lasciviously at her neck and bosom, she momentarily closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer for some sort of divine intervention. He removed his right hand from the doorpost and, his head still bent, began to tug at her bodice, already torn from his earlier endeavours. Helplessly, Georgina turned her head to one side and a tiny flicker of hope entered her heart as into her line of vision came a nail on the wall just beyond her right shoulder. Hanging from the nail was a discarded iron hasp, some eight inches long and encrusted with rust, presumably once part of the mill door’s original padlocking system.
Doing her utmost to ignore Carstairs’s urgent fumbling at the neckline of her gown, Georgina tentatively stretched ou
t her arm and, concentrating for all she was worth, her hand crept slowly up the wall unnoticed until, to her joy, she at last felt her fingers touching the bottom edge of the ancient contraption. At once she grasped the heavy implement tightly in her hand and, without stopping to consider the possible consequences of her action, unhooked it from its peg, swung it firmly and with all the force that she could muster in the direction of the back of her unsuspecting assailant’s head.
For a moment it seemed as if her attack had had no effect whatsoever, but gradually Carstairs seemed to falter in his movements, his hands fell limply to his sides and he slowly lifted his head, staring at Georgina with an expression of shocked disbelief. Then, his pale, bulbous eyes lost focus and suddenly glazed over as, with a horrifying gurgle of protest, he fell slowly towards her and slithered to the floor in an ungainly heap.
Sidestepping quickly, Georgina only just managed to avoid being taken down with him. Quivering with fright and gasping for air, she looked down at the man’s inert body straddled across the doorway where, it seemed, he was likely to remain for some considerable time. Or worse, she thought pensively—perhaps she had killed him? As far as she could tell, there was no sign of blood oozing from his scalp, although his hair was liberally flecked with flakes of rust from its violent and unexpected contact with the hasp. Suddenly conscious-stricken at what she had done, Georgina leant forward and shakily stretched out her hand towards Carstairs’s out-flung arm and tentatively placed her finger on his wrist in a feverish attempt to find his pulse. At first she could feel nothing and a sense of panic threatened to overcome her until, almost weeping with relief, she eventually managed to detect a faintly erratic beat, at which point it came to her that she had to get away from the building with all speed in case the blackguard should regain consciousness and exact some even more terrible revenge upon her!
Dorothy Elbury Page 21
