A Valentine Wedding (31 page)

The four horsemen passed the Swan soon after six o’clock. They didn’t stop there, but rode instead to a smaller establishment on Danestrete.

“You know what to do, Luiz.” Paul dismounted in the yard of the Hare and Hounds.

Luiz grunted in acknowledgment. He half fell from his nag and swore under his breath as he massaged his aching back and shook out his legs. “Godforsaken way of getting about,” he muttered.

“We’ll be here, waiting,” Paul said, ignoring this complaint. “We’ll take her after midnight, so you need to find a way to get at her without noise. You can do that?”

“Don’t know till I see what’s what,” Luiz returned. He pulled down his hat, turned up the collar of his greatcoat, and slouched out of the yard, making his way to the Swan.

Paul gestured to his two remaining companions. “Take yourselves away … anywhere in the town. Just don’t make yourselves noticeable. Come back here at midnight.”

They took themselves off without a word, and Paul went off to do his own work. He hired a chaise and six fast horses from the Hare and Hounds with the instruction that they were to be ready and waiting in the church square at midnight. He had his own coachman, so would need no inn servants. The chaise and horses would be returned to the Hare and Hounds within the week. He paid well for the privilege. Then he went for his dinner.

Luiz slouched into the Swan’s taproom and took up residence in a secluded corner. He ordered ale and did what he did best. Looked and listened.

He noted the preparations for a dinner for an aristocratic party in a private parlor abovestairs. He heard the discussions about the members of the party, about their insistence on having the sheets aired anew with warming pans. About the quality of the wine the gentleman had ordered to accompany their dinner.

He partook of dinner at the inn’s ordinary table in
the company of a voluble group of travelers who, once they’d realized he wasn’t of an outgoing nature, left him to his mutton and ale.

After dinner he took a stroll around the inn, a dark-clad figure who blended with the shadows, with the comings and goings of servants and customers alike. At the end of the evening, anyone would have been hard pressed to have offered a description of the nondescript and taciturn customer.

Chapter Fourteen

Alasdair awoke with a start. A dreadful sense of foreboding filled his head like tangled cobwebs. He was lying on his belly, one arm flung across Emma’s still form curled against him, the bedcovers tangled around their thighs. Her head was close to his on the pillow. He could hear her deep, regular breathing, feel her breath rustling against his cheek.

He knew someone was in the room before he felt the sharp, deadly prick of the knife on his back. The knowledge came with his first waking breath, while his limbs were still locked in sleep. Then came the knife. He lay rigid as a sharp line was drawn slowly down his spinal column, not breaking the skin … not yet.

“Get up slowly, Lord Alasdair.”

It was the voice of Paul Denis. But that now came as no surprise.

Alasdair pushed himself upright, turning to look at
the intruders. In the gray-darkness of night, he could make out three men other than Denis. They had encircled the bed and they all regarded him without expression. Four pistols were aimed at his chest.

There was something familiar about one of the men. Something about the round-shouldered slouch. Of course … the man who’d been watching outside the house on Mount Street … who had climbed into the garden over the side wall.

Emma stirred and muttered, “What’s the matter?” She rolled onto her back, opening her eyes. She gazed, disbelieving, at the figures around the bed, then with an instinctive movement reached down to cover herself with the tangled sheets.

Alasdair laid a hand on her shoulder in what little reassurance he could offer. He was consumed with rage at himself. He had locked the door but now that seemed the most pathetic precaution. A locked door would not keep out these predators. His mind worked furiously. He was one man, and a naked one at that, facing four assassins. His hand slid backward, feeling for the pistol beneath his pillow.

A gun barrel slammed into the side of his head. Emma cried out, a short, sharp sound that was instantly silenced by a pillow pressed against her face.

“For God’s sake, leave her alone,” Alasdair gasped, wiping the blood that trickled into his eye.

“Unfortunately, my business lies with Lady Emma … as well you know, Lord Alasdair,” Denis said smoothly. He nodded to the man who held the pillow over Emma’s face.

Emma gulped in air as the suffocating pressure was removed. She sat up, holding the covers to her throat. “You brute!” she declared, her fear for the moment
subsumed in anger at what they’d done to Alasdair. “You unmitigated bastard!”

Paul offered a mocking bow. “Forgive me, but Lord Alasdair made it necessary.” He turned back to Alasdair. “Would you be good enough to get up, please?”

Alasdair stood up, conscious of his nakedness, of his absolute vulnerability. Conscious now of the utterly pitiless eyes of the men he faced.

Paul Denis stepped to Emma’s side of the bed. He bent and in one swift movement picked up the pillow and pressed her back into the mattress with the pillow against her face again. She flailed, fighting for breath, and then realized that she was not being suffocated, she was being silenced. If she lay still, she could breathe.

The dreadful sounds filled the room. They were soft and vile. The sounds of flesh slamming into flesh. From Alasdair came strange, ugly, animal sounds of protest and pain … not loud, more like sighs than cries.

Now Emma kicked and fought, biting the pillow that silenced her and kept her in darkness. She didn’t know what they were doing to Alasdair … but she knew they were hurting him.

And then the sounds stopped.

When they stopped, Luiz, who held Alasdair’s arms at his back, released him. The beaten body slid unconscious to the floor.

Paul raised the pillow from Emma’s face. He held a scarf wadded in his hand and as she opened her mouth on a shriek of outrage, he crammed the wadded material into her mouth.

“Get dressed,” he said quietly. “Unless you want us to take you from here as you stand.”

Emma’s shocked eyes found Alasdair’s crumpled
figure on the floor. He was bleeding, his face swollen, his torso darkening with contusions. She retched, her chest and stomach heaving. She gagged violently on the scarf in her mouth. Tears streamed down her face. She made a move to pull out the gag and reeled as Paul hit her hard on the side of the head.

“Get dressed,” he commanded again in the same quiet tones. She was aware now of the eyes of the men on her naked body. They were standing silently around the almost formless shape on the floor, two of them reflectively massaging their knuckles.

Emma stumbled to obey. Under the steady, interested gaze of her audience, she found her riding habit. She scrambled into it, desperate to cover herself, trying not to look at Alasdair because to do so would bring the dreadful nausea again and she couldn’t vomit. She didn’t dare touch the gag again, or even put her hands to her face to wipe away the tears that blocked her nose, poured down her cheeks.

Why did no one hear this horror? How could it be that in an inn full of guests and servants, no one was aware of what was going on in this chamber? But it had all been so quiet, so swift, so mercilessly efficient.

When she was dressed, Paul bound her wrists behind her with a thin leather strap. He bound them tightly and the strap bit into the tender flesh, chafing her wrist bones immediately. He moved her toward the door with a hand in the small of her back.

He bent his head to her ear and said almost pleasantly, “Lord Alasdair is still alive, I believe. He will not remain so if you do anything other than put one foot in front of you until I tell you otherwise. Is that clear?”

Emma nodded her head. She didn’t believe Paul Denis would tell her the truth, but if there was the
faintest possibility that Alasdair had not died beneath those savage fists, then she could do nothing but obey her abductor.

They passed along the corridor and down the stairs like spirits through a house of dreamers. There was no sound beyond the ordinary creaking and settling of the old building. Luiz opened a side door that let them out into the street, well away from the stables, where a restless horse or a prowling dog might give the alarm.

They progressed, as silently as before, through the dark streets of the sleeping town. In front of the church, the post chaise with its six horses stood in the charge of a sleepy postilion from the Hare and Hounds.

As if following a rehearsed and well-orchestrated movement, Luiz stepped in front of Emma as Paul stepped forward to speak to the postilion. One of the other men was behind her, and she found herself bundled upward between them into the chaise, thrust into the far corner. The postilion would never have seen her.

Paul paid the postilion, who loped off to his bed, only mildly curious as to why the gent should choose to travel at dead of night. Luiz jumped from the chaise and onto the box. His two assistants sprang into the saddles of the two leading horses. Paul in leisurely fashion entered the chaise.

He sat opposite Emma, regarding her thoughtfully. She returned his stare with a baleful one of her own. Her head was clearing, her terror receding somewhat if she didn’t allow herself to think of Alasdair. She knew what Paul Denis wanted of her. She knew that he would go to any lengths to get it. But could she perhaps persuade him that she didn’t have it? As an
option, it didn’t seem promising. But it was the only one she had.

The chaise rattled at breakneck speed out of Stevenage on the London road. Emma had no way of telling which direction they were taking. The blinds were drawn over the windows and she was conscious only of the speed of their progress. The strap binding her wrists was biting deep now, and her hands were beginning to tingle. She tried to spit out the gag, but her mouth was so dry she couldn’t manage to work her tongue loose.

“Don’t worry, Lady Emma,” Paul said, as he saw her struggles. “When it’s time for you to talk, you’ll be able to. And you’ll talk to good purpose. Until then, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll save your breath until you need it.” He smiled, a flicker of his mouth in the gloom, folded his arms, and closed his eyes.

Jemmy threw down the dice with an exclamation of disgust. “Lord, but you was always a devil wi’ the dice, Sam.”

Sam grinned and reached for his ale pot. “Anyone else?” he invited.

The other men shook their heads. “Nah, I’m about done fer the night.” An ostler got up from the upturned barrel where he was sitting and stretched. “You see that chaise goin’ ’ell fer leather down the main street?”

“No.” Jemmy stood up and followed him to the door of the tack room. “Goin’ which way?”

“Lunnon. Six ‘osses kickin’ up some dust.”

“When?”

“Oh, abaht ‘alf an ’our ago. When I went out for a piss.” He scratched his groin in comfortable recollection.
“Not many folks take to the ’ighway at this time o’ night.”

“No,” Jemmy agreed thoughtfully. He turned back to the fusty warmth of the tack room, which smelled of leather, horseflesh, sweat, and ale. “Sam, you reckon the master’d be interested in a chaise goin’ ’ell fer leather to London?”

“At this hour?” Sam drained his ale and swept the handful of coins off the upturned box they’d been using as a table, dropping them into the deep pocket of his britches. “You know ’im better’n me, old lad.”

“Said as ‘ow we’ve to keep our ears an’ eyes on the lookout fer anythin’ unusual,” Jemmy said in the same reflective tone. “Reckon we’d best tell ’im.”

Sam shrugged agreeably. “Don’t take both of us.”

“He might ’ave orders fer us both,” Jemmy said. “Best you come too.” He tugged at the bottom of his jerkin as if preparing himself for the interview. “Come on, then.”

Sam followed him, yawning prodigiously.

They entered the inn by the back door that opened onto the inner courtyard, and crossed the somnolent kitchen. “You know where Lord Alasdair’s lodged?” Sam inquired through another vast yawn.