After the Abduction (2 page)

Before Morgan came along, she’d been a fool. Kept in blissful innocence at her family’s estate, Swan Park, she’d never realized how devious and hurtful and betraying some people could be. It was the one good thing Morgan had taught her.

Two years in society had finished her education. Watching badly matched couples parade through London had constantly reminded her how close she’d come to disaster by believing in Morgan’s good character. And seeing the games everyone played had forced her to sharpen her wits for fear she’d say or do something again to shame her family.

She was wiser now, more careful whom she trusted. She tried hard not to let her naturally tender heart get her into trouble, even if sometimes she missed the innocent part of herself that had died two years ago.

Rosalind apparently caught her scowling, for she said gently, “You mustn’t fret so. It’ll all be fine, I’m sure.” Then she tapped her neglected tambour. “Why don’t you help me with this? It will take your mind off this sordid business. Besides, I’m at a complete loss as to how to proceed.”

“What a shock,” Griff said dryly.

Rosalind glared at her husband. “I do have some domestic ability, you know.”

His smile turned wicked. “You do indeed. But my favorite is not your needleworking skills, my darling.”

With a roll of her eyes, Rosalind held the tambour out to Juliet. “All the same, I’d like to expand my repertoire.”

Fighting a blush, Juliet took up the tambour. Griff and Rosalind could be so very…blatant at times. Determined to ignore their meaningful glances, she examined the puckered fabric, then pointed to some crooked stitches. “Here’s where you’ve gone wrong. This is supposed to be flames in a forge to represent the God of Fire. But you’ve made it black pudding.”

“Not black pudding,” Rosalind protested. “It’s supposed to be Olympus. I know you sketched the design as Hephaestus working his forge while Aphrodite stood by. But the God of Fire is ugly, so I changed it to Zeus and Hera. It’s supposed to represent me and Griff, after all.”

Juliet raised an eyebrow. “You can’t change designs midstream. It mucks everything up. No wonder you’re having trouble.” She began pulling out stitches, no small feat in the weak afternoon light with the chill air stiffening her fingers. “Besides, Zeus was a tyrant and Hera a nagging witch. Surely that’s no better.”

“But Zeus and Hera had children,” Rosalind snapped. “Hephaestus and Aphrodite did not.”

Juliet glanced up from the tambour. “What does that signify?”

Griff looked suddenly stony-faced, and Rosalind inexplicably blushed and glanced away. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

How very odd. What was going on between those two? “I can’t salvage this mess now. I’ll sketch a new design with Zeus and Hera later, and you can start again.”

With a nod, Rosalind took back the tambour and stared
glumly down at it. “I honestly don’t know how you can bear to do needlework. I find it tedious and annoying.”

“Which is exactly how I find that Shakespeare you both enjoy so much. But I do like working with my hands. It soothes me.”

And took her mind off Morgan.

Drat it all, there he went again, intruding in her thoughts.

They turned off the main road onto a smoother one. “Apparently, we’ve reached Charnwood estate.” Griff frowned. “I don’t see a house anywhere close; it must be larger than I’d realized. It’s difficult to obtain accurate information on a man who buries himself in the country and never comes into society.”

As they trundled along mile after mile, Juliet’s heart sank. Bad enough that the baron had the respect of his peers. Must he own half the land in the shire as well? This didn’t bode well for forcing him into revealing anything about his ward.

“There’s plenty of room here to hide Morgan,” Griff remarked.

“Plenty of room to hide him and plenty of wealth to feed him, clothe him, and keep him warm for a decade,” Juliet grumbled. “I thought you said Lord Templemore’s father ran the estate into the ground.”

“That’s what I’d heard. Apparently somebody resurrected it. Though it must have taken a fortune.”

An understatement, to be sure. Thick stands of pine and oak stood sentinel to the busy efforts of workmen spreading compass on ice-crusted fields. Quaint, immaculately kept dairy buildings gave way to neat, half-timbered tenant cottages. Why, the man probably had his own tannery and smithy and goodness knew what else.

“Consorting with smugglers and acquiring fortunes go hand in hand,” Rosalind quipped. “Since Morgan
was
connected to those smugglers somehow, perhaps Temple
more is, too. He might have come by his wealth the same way you did originally, darling—by dealing in smugglers’ goods.”

“Very amusing,” Griff muttered. “But if he did, why hadn’t any of the smugglers questioned by the runner ever heard of him? They only knew Morgan, and some of them didn’t even know
him.
If Morgan was ever a smuggler himself, he wasn’t one for long.”

Soon they began an ascent up a low, wooded hill. When they shot out of the tree-bordered road onto a long, forbidding drive, Juliet tensed.

Worse and worse. Charnwood’s grounds were ten times grander than Swan Park’s. The coldly elegant lawns seemed to stretch on forever beneath the wintry gray skies. The formal gardens were tediously beautiful, with gravel paths and dainty bridges knitting together newly turned flower beds and manmade ponds. There was an impressive knot garden and hedge maze, too, just to emphasize that the baron was a man of consequence.

As if Charnwood Hall wasn’t enough to prove
that.
My oh my oh my. Only a dead woman could remain unimpressed by the sprawling ancient edifice of claret-hued brick. Compared to this stately matron, Swan Park was an upstart at her coming out.

Charnwood was the kind of eclectic great house Juliet had fallen in love with on trips to house parties. Pieces had been added here and there—a Jacobean wing stuck onto the Elizabethan core on one end, a Palladian orangery on the other. Dutch gables gilded the somber brick, and ornate cupolas perched atop the clifflike towers at each corner of the core. Every generation had stamped its own time upon the building, so harmoniously that, taken altogether, Charnwood Hall both enchanted and intimidated the viewer.

“It must require an army of servants,” Rosalind commented. “It’s a wonder his lordship hasn’t married yet. Al
though God help the woman who takes on the daunting task of running
that
household.”

“Some women would enjoy it.” Juliet’s own domestic heart certainly leaped at the thought. The challenge of it all, the accomplishment! “Wouldn’t it be positively thrilling to be the one ensuring that it runs smoothly? Turning it into a home?”

Rosalind raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes,
thrilling
is precisely the word I would have chosen.” Then she turned pensive. “The man
is
unmarried, as I recall. Wasn’t he in London when you and Helena first began attending parties? I remember talk of the newly ascended baron, though we never met him. I didn’t make the connection until now.”

“I remember that as well.” Juliet brightened. “Might he have been in town to help his wayward ward? That was right after Morgan fled from Sussex.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Griff remarked as they drew up in front of an imposing stone entrance. Their coachman climbed down and scurried to open the carriage door and lower the steps.

A footman ran out to attend them, his face marked by surprise. Charnwood Hall clearly had few visitors. If the sudden brutal blast of cold air from the opening carriage door was any indication of Shropshire weather at this time of year, she could understand why nobody visited here in winter.

As they descended, they heard shots being fired behind the house, and Juliet wondered if that might explain the lack of visitors as well.

“Is that your master shooting?” Griff asked the footman.

“Yes, sir,” the young man answered. “He always tests his pistol designs on the west lawn this time of day.”

“Come on then,” Griff told Juliet and Rosalind as he started off along a gravel path that skirted the house.

“But sir,” the footman called out, scurrying after them, “Mr. Simpkins should announce you!”

“No need!” Griff retorted as he continued on.

The footman hesitated, then ran back to the house, no doubt to fetch the butler.

Juliet hurried to keep up with her long-legged brother-in-law and sister. “Griff, are you sure this is a good idea—popping up on him like this?” Another alarming gunshot split the air.

“I want the element of surprise,” he answered.

“You want to get your head shot off,” Rosalind muttered at his side, though she didn’t attempt to stop him.

“He won’t shoot me in broad daylight before witnesses. That wouldn’t be gentlemanly.”

His acid tone gave Juliet pause. She wished Griff wouldn’t take so much upon himself. She’d never forgive herself if he were hurt. But once Griff set his course, he didn’t waver.

As they rounded the corner of the massive building, they spotted two men standing in the middle of the lawn, facing away from them. A servant in rich livery waited nearby with a large silver tray. Both men held pistols, but at the moment only one was shooting at the painted wood target set up some yards away.

The blond one who wasn’t shooting was clearly the baron himself. No one but a gentleman of rank would wear such foppish attire: highly polished top boots and spurs, puce cossack trousers, a tight-fitting jonquil tailcoat pinched at the waist, and a costly top hat.

But it was the other man—a younger, dark-haired fellow wearing a plain black greatcoat and no hat—who made Juliet’s heart stammer, then pound. He loaded his pistol, aimed, and then shot at the target.

“Good show!” the older man called out. “That was nearly a bull’s eye this time.”

“’Nearly’ isn’t good enough,” the shooter replied. “This lock needs adjustment.”

The voice was painfully familiar, humming through her memory, urging her to quicken her steps.

As a wisp of smoke faded into the chill air, the shooter examined the pistol, then set it on a small table holding ammunition. As he moved toward the tray, apparently to obtain another pistol, the servant spotted them and called out, “Your lordship, someone’s approaching.”

Both men turned at once. When Juliet saw the shooter’s face, her heart stopped. There before her was her nemesis. She’d never mistake that iron-black hair, those devilish lips, that bold, square jaw. “Morgan,” she whispered.

His gaze widened in surprise and then swept her face. She could have sworn that recognition shone in the eyes that had always been impenetrably black.

Unfortunately, Griff heard her exclamation. Striding ahead of her, he growled, “That’s him, the younger one?”

“Yes,” she replied without thinking.

Griff didn’t even break step. Walking up to the man, he raised his fist and punched him in the face. As Rosalind cursed and Juliet groaned, Morgan staggered back.

But he did nothing to defend himself. Coolly he withdrew a handkerchief to wipe away the blood trickling from his mouth. He ignored Griff, who brandished his fists and demanded, “Come on, you damned blackguard, fight me! Or do you only bully women?”

“What happened to Griff’s handling the interview with ‘discretion and gentlemanly calm’?” Juliet muttered to her sister.

“Hope springs eternal,” Rosalind muttered back.

Morgan’s companion grabbed Griff’s arm. “Here now, sir, what is all this? Are you mad?”

Wrenching free, Griff pivoted to glower at the older man. “I regret to inform you, your lordship, but your ward
is a scoundrel and a villain. Mr. Pryce has injured my family, and I shall see—”

“Your lordship?” the older man interrupted. “Oh no, you are confused. I am not Lord Templemore.”

“Then who is?” Rosalind burst out.

Morgan stepped forward, blood-soiled handkerchief still in hand. “
I
am.” As the three of them gaped at him, he flashed Griff an unreadable look. “And judging from your accusations, sir, you’ve recently run afoul of my brother, Morgan.”

“
You’re
Morgan,” Juliet blurted out, never so sure of anything in all her life. Then the rest of his statement arrested her. “Brother? He’s not your…that is…”

The gaze he leveled on her now was remote and aloof, showing no sign of recognition. “I beg your pardon, madam, but I’m not Morgan. I’m Sebastian Blakely, Lord Templemore. I do understand your confusion, however. You see, Morgan and I are not only brothers, but twins.
Identical
twins.”

Griff gaped at him. “That cannot be. I was informed that he was the baron’s…I mean,
your
ward.”

A pained smile crossed his lordship’s handsome features. “No doubt you were. It’s a complicated story.” He straightened to his full height. She’d forgotten how very tall he was. “But I prefer not to discuss it with complete strangers.”

The precise language, the gentlemanly demeanor, the wry smile were all Morgan’s. Yet the man was clearly master of the house, judging from the irate servants now gathering on the lawn to form a protective phalanx beside him. It was unfathomable that
her
Morgan could be a lord. Lords didn’t kidnap women and consort with smugglers.

Still…

Griff hesitated, then bowed stiffly. “I see that I must beg your pardon and provide introductions. My name is Grif
fith Knighton. This is my wife, Lady Rosalind, and my sister-in-law, Lady Juliet.” He nodded toward Lord Templemore’s companion. “I assumed from this other gentleman’s age that he was master of Charnwood. So when my sister-in-law recognized
you,
we both thought—”

“That I must be Morgan,” Lord Templemore finished.

“Yes. You have my deepest apologies, sir. I shouldn’t have struck you.”

“Good of you to admit it.” His gaze flicked to her, then back to Griff, as if looking at her unsettled him. “Is your sister-in-law the person my brother ‘injured’?”

“Yes,” Juliet answered for Griff, wanting Lord Templemore to look at her again. She couldn’t believe his assertions. There was too much of Morgan in him, not only in his looks, but his controlled manner, his refined speech…his arrogance. If she could only read his eyes…