by Cheryl Bolen
After she finished with the letter, she watched Edward fill a fourth page with columns, then he leaned back and studied all four pages, only to end up cursing and wadding up all the pages and heaving them across the room.
"I'm going to need my code book," he finally said.
"I take it it's at the Foreign Office?"
"It is," he said, frowning and getting up from the chair.
"While you're gone I believe I'll sneak into my chamber and change into fresh clothing."
His eyes glittering as he looked at her, he hauled her into his arms and held her firmly. "Oblige me by wearing the rose dress you wore that first night."
"I should like to do anything that will please you."
Gentle lips brushed over hers.
* * *
Sarah, her hands hitched to her hips and a scowl on her face, was waiting in Maggie's sunny bedchamber. "I've been frantic all night worried about you, and here you were right under this very roof behaving the strumpet with the lord and master!"
Maggie began to giggle. "I'm sorry I didn't alleviate your fears, dearest, but when one's being a strumpet, it's rather difficult to extricate oneself."
Sarah regarded Maggie through narrowed eyes, a tell-tale hint of a smile at her lips. "I knew that first week that Lord Warwick was the man for you, but you, my pretty little one, don't always exercise good judgment in your selection of men."
"So you're saying I exercised good judgment this time?"
"I believe you have."
Maggie smiled. "Come help me into my rose gown. His lordship asked me to wear it especially for him."
In her looking glass Maggie watched Sarah, her gray head bent, fasten the row of buttons at the back of the gown. "How fortunate for you that I'm to end up with Lord Warwick! Now you won't have to leave Mr. Wiggins."
A deep red blush climbed into Sarah's sallow cheeks.
Maggie's eyes twinkled with mischief as she turned to face Sarah. "Can there perhaps be two strumpets under this roof?"
The maid's blush turned into a deep purple as she shrugged. "I may have picked up a thing or two from you after these four and twenty years."
Smiling, Maggie dropped into the chair in front of her dressing table, and Sarah began to arrange her hair.
"The rose is my favorite gown on you, too," Sarah said.
"A pity I can't wear it every day!"
A moment later Sarah asked, "Will Miss Becky be returning soon?"
"I don't believe so. We'll have the devil of a time prying her from Lord Agar's library--which she has volunteered to catalog."
"I was wondering what I should do with Lord Warwick's library books that are still in her chamber."
"I believe I should like to see them."
Sarah nodded. "You had two gentleman callers yesterday."
"Who else--besides Mr. Hollingsworth?"
"A Mr. Lyle."
"Oh, dear."
"Why are you oh dearing?"
Maggie sighed. "Because Mr. Lyle wishes to offer for me. Oh! By the way I need you to post a letter to Mr. Hollingsworth."
Sarah stood back and glared at Maggie, her eyes narrowed. "I take it the letter to Mr. Hollingsworth is to decline his offer?"
Maggie nodded sheepishly.
* * *
An hour later Harry Lyle had come and gone. Maggie was satisfied she had let him down gently. After he proposed, she merely said, "Were I not planning on marrying another, I would have been most happy to consider you suit."
"May I know who you plan to marry?" he had asked.
"After some minor details are worked out, I shall be happy to inform you," she had said.
Now that he was gone, Maggie slumped at the bench before the saloon's pianoforte and began to pick out a tune.
"Here are those books Miss Becky was reading," Sarah said, sweeping into the room with a stack of four books.
Maggie got up and came to examine the titles of each book. A slender volume of poetry seemed precisely what she wished to read today. She took it and went to read beside the window.
The first poem that captured her attention was Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." She set back and began to read. When she reached the fourth stanza she bolted up. My God!
It was a modification of The Scoundrel's poem! But realizing the poem was likely written before The Scoundrel was born, it was The Scoundrel who had done the adaptation.
The most significant modification was the complete rewriting of the last line. What originally read The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep had been changed to In the long-forgotten kirkyard of Rufton Mill. Could Rufton Mill be a real place? A place where The Scoundrel had hidden his document--or whatever it was he had?
She hurried to Edward's library to seek a map of England.
That's where she was when Lord Carrington called. "Oh, my lord, how fortuitous that you've come now! I may have discovered where my late husband hid whatever it was that he had." She proceeded to tell him about the poem.
"Would you be so good as to write it down?" he asked.
She went to Edward's broad Tudor desk and copied it, then presented it to Lord Carrington.
His eyes flashed with warmth.
"Do you know of a place called Rufton Mill?" she asked.
"I do, my lady. It's not far from here. Shall we go?"
"Should we not wait for Ed---for Lord Warwick?"
"We can be back before he returns."
"Allow me to fetch my pelisse and bonnet," she said.
Sarah and Wiggins were softly speaking in the broad hallway when Maggie swept through. "If Lord Warwick returns before I," Maggie said, "tell him I've gone to Rufton Mill with Lord Carrington."
Chapter 31
Damn it! Edward slung his code book across the room. Four measly lines and he couldn't break the damn code. He had been sitting at his desk in the Foreign Office for the past hour, plagued by a maddening suspicion the damned poem was not in code, by the fuzzy memory of another poem he was powerless to recall.
A pity Harry Lyle was not here. He was a master at cryptography.
Another niggling thought kept eating away at Edward, but he was unable to give it shape and substance. He only knew that it had something to do with Lord Carrington.
Stuffing the stanza into his pocket--not that he needed it since he now knew it from memory--Edward stormed from the building.
At Warwick House, he went straight to the saloon, suspecting that Maggie might be receiving callers there. But she wasn't there. The sight of an open book on top of the pianoforte caught his attention. He strode to it and began to read Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
Even before he got to the fourth stanza, he knew why Henshaw's stanza had been so familiar. As soon as he realized the significance of the Rufton Mill substitution, he stormed to his library to consult his map. Rufton Mill must be a place! A place where Henshaw hid his damned document.
He was deuced angry at himself for not realizing sooner that Rufton Mill was a real place. Though he had never been there, he had heard of it before--not that he could recall when or where.
For the next half hour he searched his maps but could not find Rufton Mill. Then that hazy memory that had been swimming around in his feeble brain rose to the surface, and he knew where he had heard of Rufton Mill. The previous Lord Warwick was buried there!
In a drawer of his desk he rifled through a stack of papers until he found what he was looking for. Rufton Mill was located in Kent, just outside Hogarth Castle.
He debated on whether he should tell Lord Carrington. Something about Lord Carrington--something beside the man's unexpected interest in Maggie--screamed warning signals. But hadn't the fact the men in Newgate Prison identified a Frenchman as the evil-doer behind Maggie's abduction exonerated Lord Carrington?
Then Edward realized that he had only Lord Carrington's word to go by. His pulse thundering, he flew from the library, through the house and raced to the mews.
He hel
ped his groom quickly saddle a mount. He had no wish for his gig. Speed was what was called for.
He sped through Mayfair, then along The Strand, his horse's hooves eating up the pavement as he rushed to Newgate Prison. Since he'd had some minor dealings with the Newgate official, the man recognized him immediately.
"Good afternoon, Lord Warwick," the man said.
Even the official's office was not free from the prison's foul stench. "It is a matter of some urgency that I speak with the prisoners Lord Carrington questioned yesterday."
The man shot him a puzzled look. "But, your lordship, I have no recollection of Lord Carrington being here any day this week."
Edward's heart drummed. "You've been here every day?"
"Every day."
"Is there someone else who may have assisted Lord Carrington?"
"No, my lord."
Edward cursed. "If you should find that Lord Carrington's been here, please send word to me at Warwick House on Curzon Street." Edward did not hear the man's response. He was racing from the building.
His heart thundered as he galloped back to Warwick House. What if Carrington were with Maggie right now? What evil was the man plotting?
* * *
They had been driving in Lord Carrington's carriage for an hour, the maze of narrow London streets now behind them. Maggie was growing uncomfortable. "Is this mill not in London, my lord?"
"No, my dear, it's not."
"But you said we could be back before Edward returned." She was so out of charity with Lord Carrington she did not care that she had addressed Edward by his Christian name.
"And so we will."
She had the distinct feeling he was lying to her. "I wish to turn around now. I should never have come off without Lord Warwick."
"Oh, but we are so close, my lady."
She wedged herself into a corner of the carriage and glared at the man across from her. "That's what you said a half hour ago--and a half hour before that. Just where is this Rufton Mill?"
"Actually, it's in Kent."
"In Kent! I may not be knowledgeable about English geography, but I know that's well south of London! I believe, my lord, you've lied to me."
He shrugged. "Just a mild prevarication, my dear. Can you blame me for wishing to steal away some little time with the woman I hope to marry?"
Odious man! She folded her arms in front of her, her eyes shooting daggers at him. "I don't think I have any desire to wed a man who can't be truthful."
Ignoring her, he lifted the curtain to peer from the glass.
"Truthfully, my lord, how much longer?" She didn't like to think of Edward worrying about her.
He turned cold blue eyes on her. "Truthfully, we should be there at dusk."
"At dusk! But that's a good two hours away! How could you have been so devious as to tell me it was but a short distance? I thought we were going to some little mill a couple of miles from Mayfair."
His voice was harsh when he snapped. "You cannot blame me for your own erroneous interpretation."
She was almost overcome with a raging urge to slap the man across his smirking face. Instead she wedged even further into her corner, refusing to speak to the horrid man.
It was some little while before dusk when Lord Carrington's coach rattled up to an overgrown cemetery and lurched to a stop. Not waiting for him or his coachman to open the door, she bolted from her seat, threw open the door, and leaped down to the soft earth.
She tossed a curious glance to three straggly looking men on horses who drew up behind the marquess's coach.
Her pulse exploded when she saw the man with a patch over his eye. The man who was missing a front tooth.
* * *
As his horse drew up in front of Warwick House, Edward sighed with relief. Thank God Carrington's carriage wasn't there. He leaped from his mount, gave the reins to the ostler, then flew up the steps to throw open the door just as Wiggins came striding toward him.
"Where, Wiggins, can I find my future countess?" Edward could barely suppress a grin at the intoxicating thought that Maggie would be his wife.
"She has gone off with Lord Carrington, my lord."
It was as if a cannonball had hurled into the pit of Edward's stomach. His very breath was trapped in his chest. "Dear God," was all he could manage.
Wiggins's brows creased with concern. "Is something wrong, my lord?"
"Did she tell you where she was going?"
"Actually her ladyship did give us her destination, but I can't seem to recall the place. Not anywhere I've ever heard of."
"Who else did she tell?" Edward demanded.
"Miss Sarah."
"Fetch her at once!" But as Wiggins went to the climb the stairs Edward was too impatient to wait. Like a banshee, he screamed out her name. "Sarah!"
She came running along the second-floor hallway, and from the top of the stairs answered. "What is it, my lord?" Her face had gone ashen as she bent over the railing to look down at him.
"Where has your mistress gone?" Edward demanded.
She pursed her lips. "Now let me see. I believe it was to some mill."
A string of vile curses strung from Edward's mouth as he spun around and raced to the library where he stored his pistols. He took one from the case and slammed it into a pocket, then he hurriedly strapped on his saber before storming from the house--only to almost knock down Randolph Hollingsworth.
"Where in the hell are you going in such a huff?" Hollingsworth asked.
"Carrington's got Maggie," Edward said in an anguished voice. "And he's the one."
Hollingsworth issued an oath. "I'm coming with you!"
Edward looked down at the sword at Randolph's side. "We've got to hurry!"
Chapter 32
As soon as she saw those vile men, she understood everything. That Lord Carrington had completely fabricated the Newgate Prison story. That Lord Carrington was the man who employed the cutthroats, the man who ordered Andrew Bibble's death. That Lord Carrington, for reasons completely unclear to her, had betrayed his country. Now she understood why he had so desperately tried to cast suspicion onto Edward.
Stark, white-hot fear on her face, she whirled to the marquess. "Why have you brought me here?" Oh God. She knew why. Her chest tightened, her pulse pounded. He's going to kill me. "I'm not the only one who knows about the poem," she taunted before she realized her implication of Edward would likely cost his life, too.
"You told Warwick?" he snarled.
She stiffened. "No. Someone else."
His gaze flicked from her to the man with the eye patch. "Find a shovel, will you?"
They were going to kill her and bury her here, and no one would ever know what happened. She looked around to see if any houses were nearby, but clumps of trees obliterated any view of the surrounding countryside for as far as she could see.
"Tie her up!" Lord Carrington ordered.
She picked up her skirts and began to sprint into the crumbling cemetery. She sped past eroded gravestones and over clumps of overgrown weeds, running as fast as her legs could power her. Then her foot plunged into a rut. Her ankle twisted, and she tumbled on top of a neatly kept grave.
As her face collided with the soft earth, she saw the name on the tombstone. Third Earl Warwick, 1751-1811. She tried to hoist herself up, but one of the men lunged at her and caught her wrist. Pain splintered through her arm as the man yanked her up, twisting the wrist within a brutal grip while the other men stepped forward and began to tie her hands behind her.
"Where's Logan?" the marquess demanded. "He should have been able to procure a shovel by now!"
A moment later, One Eye returned, lugging a shovel. When he reached the late Lord Warwick's grave, Lord Carrington ordered him to start digging. "Start around the headstone," he said.
As soon as One Eye drove the spade into the ground, they heard the sound of clanking metal. A minute later a metal box was unearthed. "I'll take that," Lord Carrington said.
"'Tis light
as a feather," said the man with the eye patch. "I'll wager there's no gold sovereigns in it."
Lord Carrington's flashing eyes flicked from the box to his hired henchmen. "Do you fellows know how to read?"
"Why ye be askin' us foolish questions like that?" One Eye asked. "We ain't no fancy pants to be sittin' around no school room."
"Just as I thought," Lord Carrington said in a guttural voice. "Why don't you gents just step away for a few minutes."
The three men backed up ten paces.
"Back to the horses!" Lord Carrington screamed viciously.
There was fear on their faces as the men complied.
Once they were out of earshot, the marquess opened the box and withdrew a document bearing a regal-looking seal. "My eyes are not what they used to be," he said, facing Maggie. "Oblige me by reading this."
"Oblige me by untying my hands!" she spit out at him.
"I think not. I'll hold it for you." He drew closer and unfurled the vellum that stretched to over a foot in length. She saw that it was written in French, in large bold letters. Her glance dropped to the signature. Napoleon, Emperor of France.
"Read it! Damn you!"
She translated as she read. "On the twelfth of August in the year eighteen-seven it is agreed that in payment for invaluable services rendered not without personal risk and in recognition of diligent loyalty to the Emperor of France, Albert Black, Fourth Marquess Carrington, will be placed on the English throne at such time as the British Isles come under French rule."
She looked up at him, hatred in her eyes. "You're the devil himself!"
"The devil, madam, was your late husband. He stole this document from me. He was just as guilty as I of helping the French, only he wasn't as smart as I. Warwick--or Stanfield as he was then--found him out, but as long as Henshaw had possession of the document I had to see to it that Henshaw lived."
"So that's why you insisted I stay in London! You knew eventually I'd lead you to this."
