by Anna Bradley
Chapter Twenty-three
It had been an afternoon of torture.
Lord Bartleby, an irascible earl from a neighboring estate, had come by after breakfast, demanding an audience over some pressing business regarding a shared wall on the eastern border of their two properties.
At least, Bartleby deemed it pressing. Samuel didn’t give a damn one way or another about the wall, but Bartleby could talk on the subject forever, it seemed. By the time he left Samuel’s study, Samuel’s head was pounding, and he would have sworn there was blood trickling out of his ears.
If it had ever occurred to Samuel the man could drone on and on at such length about height, drainage, and proper English granite, he never would have let the old bounder set foot in his study.
Thanks to Lord Bartleby and his damned border wall it had been an entire afternoon wasted, and now Samuel was late for tea. He flew upstairs and dressed with such haste he left his dressing closet turned upside down and poor, harried Fletcher in despair.
When he entered the drawing room, there was only one thing on his mind—only one thing he wanted.
Emma.
“Good afternoon, Lymington.” Lord Dunn was lounging on one of the settees, one booted foot dangling over his knee, a cup of tea in his hand.
Samuel paused in the doorway. Where was Emma? Come to that, where was everyone else? A tea tray rested on the table at Dunn’s elbow, but he was alone in the room. “Have I missed tea?”
“Lady Lymington was here, but she’s since retired to her rooms with a headache. Lovell’s gone for a ride on the eastern edge of the estate, and Lady Flora and Lady Silvester went to the conservatory to see if the apricots had ripened.”
Samuel frowned. “What of Lady Crosby and Lady Emma?”
Dunn shrugged. “Still abed, I imagine, after the ball last night.”
Lady Crosby, perhaps, but not Emma. She’d promised to meet him for luncheon. He’d been trapped in his study with Bartleby then, but he’d expected he’d see her at tea. “Were they not at luncheon?”
“I’ve no idea, Lymington. I’ve only just ventured into tea myself. I drank too much champagne last night, and I’ve had a devil of a headache all day.”
“You haven’t been out riding, then?” Dunn’s boots were wet, and the hem of his riding coat was splattered with mud. “For a man who’s just left his bed, you look a mess.”
“Kind of you to say so, Lymington,” Dunn drawled, smirking. “An extra lump of sugar in your tea, perhaps, to sweeten your temper?”
Samuel wasn’t interested in tea, or in anything else but finding Emma, but he couldn’t rush off and abandon Dunn without sharing a cup with him first. Surely, he wasn’t quite such a besotted fool he couldn’t manage a cup of tea?
“Sugar won’t do it, Dunn.” The only thing that would restore Samuel to good humor was one fair-haired, blue-eyed lady with the sweetest lips he’d ever kissed, but he strode into the drawing room anyway, joined Dunn by the fire, and served himself a cup of tea.
Before he had a chance to raise the cup to his lips, however, Lady Crosby burst into the drawing room, her hair tumbling from its neat bun, and her face as pale as death. “Oh, Lord Lymington, thank goodness I’ve found you!”
Samuel shot to his feet, startled by her wild appearance, and his teacup slipped from his hand and tumbled to the carpet. “What is it, Lady Crosby?”
“I can’t find Emma! She was supposed to fetch me for tea when she returned, but I fell asleep, and didn’t realize she never—”
“Returned from where, Lady Crosby? Where did she go?”
Lady Crosby was wringing her hands. “To the folly! The one behind the kitchens, next to the pond.”
“The folly!” Pure panic swept over Samuel. That folly was in a remote part of the grounds, down a wooded pathway, and not visible from the house. “Please tell me she didn’t venture so far from the house alone.”
“N-no, not alone.” Lady Crosby had become so agitated by this point she was struggling to catch her breath. “She fetched Daniel to go with her.”
Daniel Brixton should be menacing enough to deter even the most hardened villain, but if his presence had been as discouraging as it ought to have been, then where was Emma?
“Dunn, go after Lovell, and fetch Felix Humphries. Tell them they’re needed at the folly at once, and that I’ll meet them there.” Samuel didn’t wait for an answer, but flew from the drawing room out to the stables at a dead run.
He started calling Brixton’s name once the stable was in sight, but there was no answer, and when he burst through the doors, he found the place deserted. Aside from an occasional equine snort and shuffle of hooves, all was still and silent.
Daniel Brixton had been everywhere during the past weeks in London, shadowing Emma’s every move, and lurking on the darkened streets outside the Pink Pearl. Whichever way Samuel turned, Brixton was there, shoving his enormous bulk between Samuel and any hope he had of a private moment with Emma.
Now that Samuel actually needed the man, he was nowhere to be found.
Samuel stood in the middle of the stables, his gaze darting helplessly this way and that, as close to panicking as he’d ever been in his life. Emma had been missing for hours, now it seemed Brixton was also missing, and Samuel’s thoughts were on the verge of scattering into chaos.
But if he let that happen, he’d be no use to Emma at all. He dragged a hand down his face, drew in deep breath, and tried to think.
Brixton would never have left Emma by choice. Wherever Emma was, Brixton was with her, so there was no sense waiting here for Brixton to turn up. Samuel would have to go to the folly alone, and hope for the best.
He ran out the stable doors and around the eastern side of the house. The light from the kitchen illuminated the area just outside the window, but beyond that was gloom, the shadows growing longer with every moment as the sun sank below the horizon.
There were no smooth gravel pathways or trimmed hedges here, but Samuel plunged ahead, stumbling over tree roots as he tore down the steep hill that led toward the pond, his boots sliding over the loose dirt, threatening to send him crashing to the ground with every step.
But he didn’t slow, even as the soil beneath his feet softened, before it disintegrated into muck near the water. By the time he reached the edge of the pond his chest was heaving with his panting breaths. It had been years since he’d been down here, but he remembered the folly was tucked under the stand of oak trees near the end of the pathway.
He paused, straining to see into the distance. “Emma!”
No answer.
He called Emma’s name again, but the only sound was the echo of his voice reverberating among the trees, and the squelch of his footsteps as he made his way through the muck toward the folly.
Before he’d even stepped inside, Samuel knew she wasn’t here. If she had been, he’d have felt her at once, but he circled around the building nonetheless, searching for…God, he didn’t even know what. Some hint of her, some sign she’d been here, but there was nothing, nothing—
He almost missed it. He didn’t realize it was there until he stepped on it.
A ribbon, lying on the floor, a familiar, distinctive shade of blue.
Samuel snatched it up, brought it to his face, and inhaled.
Vanilla.
He stood for long, silent moments, the blue silk against his lips, breathing deeply of her scent and forcing himself to calm. She’d been here recently, then, but where was she now?
Young ladies didn’t simply vanish without a trace—
Except they did. At Lymington House, they did.
Another moment passed, then another, Emma’s blue ribbon clutched in Samuel’s fist as he tried to decide what to do next. It could be some time before Dunn found Lovell, but shouldn’t Humphries be here by now?
Samuel shoved Emma’s ribbon in his pock
et and ran back up the pathway, leaving the folly behind, intending to retrace his footsteps back to the house.
He’d drag every footman in the house down here if he had—
Snap.
Samuel froze at the sound of a tree branch cracking under someone’s foot.
He squinted into the blackness. Was that…
It was. A flicker of movement, some distance away still, far enough he could hardly make it out, but it looked like…
The shadow of a man, weaving through the trees.
Who would be wandering the estate now, in the dark, especially so close to the pond, over grounds made treacherous by slick mud and protruding tree branches?
No one who was up to any good.
Samuel hesitated, wondering if he could risk waiting for Humphries, but the man wasn’t likely to be of much use, and the shadow was receding further into the distance as he hesitated. Lovell and Dunn might arrive soon, but by then the man would have disappeared entirely.
Samuel didn’t have any time left.
He crept from the pathway into the rough ground closer to the trees, a soft curse leaving his lips when the sharp branches tore at his hair and coat, but he never took his eyes off that threatening shadow.
He picked his way across the slick ground, sucking in a breath as frigid water seeped into his boots and his toes screamed in protest, the icy water stabbing him like knives slashing his skin.
The shock of the cold made him slow, clumsy, but he could see the man clearly now, a dark figure moving slowly through the trees ahead of him, grabbing at branches as he went to steady himself.
Samuel crept after him, his steps careful but his pace quick and steady, one step, two, a dozen, drawing closer with each one…so close he could see the man’s broad shoulders and a black-gloved hand resting against a thick tree trunk.
Closer, a little closer and he could leap on the man’s back, drag him to the ground—
“Bloody hell!” The man whirled around at the sound of Samuel’s footfalls, but it was already too late.
By then, Samuel was on him.
“Oof!” The man landed with a hard thump on his belly on the muddy ground. Samuel was atop him in an instant, shoving the man’s face into the muck with a fist to the back of his head. “What have you done with Emma, you blackguard?”
The man wrenched his head free, and a torrent of vile curses fell from his lips. “Hell, and damnation! I might a’ known it’d be you—”
The man broke off, gagging around a mouthful of mud as Samuel gave his face another shove. “Tell me where she is now, or I’ll see to it you’re buried head first in—”
“Get off me, ye daft devil!”
Samuel had no intention of going anywhere, but by now the man had overcome his shock, and with one mighty heave he managed to crawl to his knees and throw Samuel off him.
Samuel landed on the ground on his back with a thump that knocked the breath out of him, but in an instant he’d rolled into a crouch, a growl on his lips as he readied to leap again.
“It’s Brixton, ye damned fool!” Brixton struggled to his feet and bent over, hands on his knees, and sucked one ragged breath after another into his lungs.
“Brixton?” Samuel dragged himself up, swaying as he struggled to stand. “Damn it, man, I’ve been searching for you! You’re doing a bloody poor job of protecting Emma, because she’s—”
“Damn it, Lymington, I think ye broke my hand.”
Samuel wanted to strangle him. “I don’t give a damn about your hand. Christ, Brixton, didn’t you hear me? I told you, Emma’s missing!”
Daniel spat on the ground. “Dunn took ’er.”
“Dunn?” Samuel shook his head. “Why should Dunn—”
“Dunn’s yer blackguard, Lymington. Did away with those three servant girls.”
“Dunn!” Samuel stared at Brixton, stunned speechless. “How do you know?”
“I know ’cause ’e tried to kill me. Coward crept up behind me in the folly. Nearly crushed my skull with a rock, then tossed me in the pond.”
“He crushed your skull and tossed you in the pond, and you didn’t drown?”
Brixton scowled at him. “Ye ever been in that pond, Lymington? It’s half ice still. Woke me right up, it did.”
“You’re sure it was Dunn?”
“Aye, I’m sure. I crawled onto the bank of the pond and saw the devil drag Miss Emma away. I’ve been lying there ever since trying to get up, but my head was dizzy, and my legs not right.”
None of this made sense. Dunn had been in Samuel’s drawing room an hour ago, sipping tea and smiling, just having risen from his bed…except his boots had been wet, and his coat splattered with mud.
Samuel swallowed as those two details took on an ominous significance. “You’re telling me Dunn’s a villain, and now he has Emma?”
“Aye, that’s what I’m telling ye. But don’t underestimate Miss Emma. That lass knows what she’s about—”
Samuel didn’t wait to hear anymore, but whirled in the direction of Dunn’s hunting box. “If Dunn has Emma, then why are we still standing here? Let’s go!”
“Nay, Lymington. He didn’t take her that way.” Brixton pointed in front of them. “He took ’er back toward the house.”
Toward the house? Why would Dunn take her back toward the house, where it was much more likely they’d be seen? It didn’t make any sense—
Samuel went still, a chill rolling over him as Brixton’s words came back to him.
Ye ever been in that pond, Lymington? It’s half ice still.
There was one place Dunn could take Emma where they wouldn’t be seen, and where no one was likely to find her…
Samuel met Brixton’s eyes. “I know where Emma is.”
Chapter Twenty-four
It was a long time before Emma realized Lord Dunn had taken her to the icehouse.
She might have grasped it sooner, but being attacked in a folly and dragged away with a blackguard’s hand slapped over her mouth was a harrowing experience.
Shock made her hazy, and nausea swamped her every time she thought about how Lord Dunn might have incapacitated Daniel, who wasn’t the sort of man who was easily overcome. Her mind helpfully offered more than one gruesome scenario, until she forced herself to stop dwelling on it, lest her calm deserted her.
Hysterics were out of the question. Things were bad enough, without that.
But the icehouse wasn’t a welcoming place, not even in the daylight, and it was far worse now that the sun had slipped below the horizon. It was as dark as Hades, and just as frightening.
Ideal, though, if one were intent on a kidnapping. Certainly, no one would hear her scream from here.
She hadn’t thought much about the cold at first—dark places were often cold—but no one could ignore such frigidity for long. It was positively artic, as if the entire building were buried in ice—
Ice. Of course.
It all fell into place, then. The fragments of ice still floating in the pond, the low brick doorway set into the side of the steep hill that wasn’t a hill at all, or even a feature of the landscape, as she’d first assumed.
It was a mound, and where there was a mound, there was bound to be a pit. In this case, an ice pit, the excavated earth fashioned into a mound over the top to keep the ice as cold as possible.
It did an admirable job of it. Emma wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. Thank goodness for Lady Crosby, who’d reminded her to wear her cloak.
She didn’t bother to try the door—she’d heard a metallic click after Lord Dunn slammed it shut, the scrape of an iron key in a lock—and knew he’d locked her inside.
It could be some time still before Lord Dunn returned to deal with her. He’d want to make certain everyone noticed him at Lymington House, so they’d be less likely to suspect him o
f any wrongdoing when they discovered she’d gone missing. He might even wait for Lord Lovell to leave the house, so it would be easier to implicate him in her disappearance.
Lord Dunn was clever that way, but in the end, not clever enough. His fate was already sealed, no matter what happened to Emma.
He simply didn’t know it yet.
And Emma hadn’t been idle, while he’d been gone. It wasn’t easy, finding her way about in total darkness, but Lord Dunn had left her plenty of time to orient herself. Foolish of him, really, but he wasn’t the first gentleman who’d underestimated her.
She’d taken her time, even sinking to her knees and crawling with her hands out in front of her, searching for the edge of the ice pit. There weren’t many ways to make her situation worse than it was now, but falling into the ice pit was one of them.
In the end, all her creeping about paid off, because she’d found what she was looking for. Well, not precisely what she was looking for—she would have preferred an ice hook, or better yet an ice pick, as she had a horror of blades—but it was a great stroke of luck she’d found anything at all.
The axe was on the smaller side, and the blade end nearly rusted through. It wasn’t in fine condition, which was likely why it had been left behind, but it would do, for her purposes. The edge of the blade was dull, but she could defend herself with it if she swung with enough force. It might be difficult, as her hands had long since gone numb, but she’d simply have to do her best.
Except her knees were a trifle wobbly. Her cloak was damp, and she was already shuddering with cold, her teeth chattering. She might sit on the floor and attempt to regain her equilibrium, but it was stone, and nearly as cold as the ice itself.
If nothing else brought this to a tragic end, the cold would. If she fell asleep out here, she might never wake up. So Emma kept moving, pacing from one end of the icehouse to the other, stamping her feet, rubbing her hands together, and waiting.
It was impossible to keep track of the time down here, so she wasn’t sure how long it had been when she heard the muffled thud of a man’s boots on the pathway outside the icehouse.
