Anne Barbour (28 page)

“Would you had chosen the steep cliff,” was Alison’s sharp rejoinder. She rose. “If that is your idea of an explanation, Jack, it needs a great deal of improvement. Now, I am going to join the others, and if I were you, I would make myself extremely scarce for the foreseeable future. When the earl hears of this, I have a feeling he will be on your trail like a burr. And let me tell you, Jack, the Earl of Marchford can be very tenacious.”

Jack merely stared at Alison for a long moment, and a curl of unease stirred inside her. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost tender as he drew closer to her.

“Oh, Alison, why do you have to make things so difficult? If only you had—” His sentence went unfinished as he raised his fist suddenly and caught Alison with a blow to her chin. She fell in a soundless heap, and Jack gathered her up in his arms. Laying her on the floor for a moment, he paused to avail himself of notepaper and pen procured from a small desk set before the window. Quickly, he scribbled a note, which he twisted into a screw and tossed on the table in the center of the room. Then, stepping to the window, he called softly to a short, thick-set young man standing outside in the stable yard. Lifting Alison up once more, he climbed with some effort through the window into the stable yard, where, with the assistance of his companion, he half walked and half carried Alison to his waiting curricle.

Moving quickly, the two bundled the young woman into the vehicle, thrusting her to the floor, where Jack threw a rug over her unconscious form. The few persons in the stable yard, busy with their own concerns, paid no heed to these odd goings-on.

The young man clambered onto the small seat at the rear of the vehicle as Jack took his own place, smiling as he slapped the reins against his horses. The curricle moved at a brisk trot through the gate. Once out of the stable yard, Jack chose a circuitous route, entering the highway some half a mile beyond the entrance to the inn, where Meg and her protectors stood waiting for Alison.

Jack permitted himself a congratulatory chuckle as he gazed down at the motionless rug. “When the kit bolts from one hole,” he murmured, “the wise man knows to wait at another for the vixen.” Bursting into a loud laugh at his own wit, Jack
slapped the reins once more, and turned his curricle toward London.

* * * *

March hurried up the steps to the house in Royal Crescent in response to an urgent summons from his aunt.  Entering, he found her pacing the parquetry floor of the entrance hall. “March!” she cried. “Thank God you’ve come.” “I came as soon as I received your message. What is it, Aunt?” Indeed, the old lady looked agitated and most unwell. Her silvery hair was in disarray and her face was pale and drawn.

“It’s Alison! She’s gone! She’s gone after Jack Crawford!” An unpleasant sensation curled in the pit of March’s stomach. “What? What are you talking about?”

Lady Edith handed him the piece of paper she was waving in one hand. “She left a note saying that Jack had left town and that she was following him. My God, March, why would she do such a thing?”

March snatched the missive from her and scanned it hastily.

“Lady Edith,”
Alison had written,
“Jack has left Bath for London. I must go after him. Do not worry, I am taking Blickling with me.”

“Blickling?” he asked blankly.

“I don’t understand that, either. Why would one take a footman on an elopement?”

“Elopement,” he echoed stupidly.

“March,” said his aunt in some asperity, “if you are simply going to repeat everything I say, we shall get nowhere. I cannot believe Alison would run off with Jack Crawford, but why would she want to give that impression?”

“My God.” March perused the note once more. No! She would not do this. He could have sworn that Alison’s feelings for Crawford consisted only of contempt and fear. The bastard’s precipitate departure from the city had been expected, but why in God’s name would Alison follow him?

“This is Alison’s handwriting?” he asked, grasping at straws.

“Yes.”

March’s jaw tightened as he faced his aunt. “I’m going after her. I cannot believe she is doing this of her own free will.”

“I quite agree with you, March. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know Alison. She would never simply pick up and leave like some sort of lightskirt—particularly not with Jack Crawford. Go, my dear.” Her fragile voice trembled. “And please, bring her back safely.”

March whirled and ran from the house. Mounting his curricle, he flung a brief word of explanation to Toby, who assumed his post with an expression of determination on his gamin features. The next moment, the curricle vanished from Royal Crescent in a whirling cloud of dust.

Grateful for the thinness of the traffic on this midweek morning, March soon turned onto the London Road. Since he did not expect to catch sight of his quarry for some time, his attention was solely on the road and his horses, for he was driving at what could only be called a shocking pace. Thus, it was with some astonishment that upon glancing up at a coach speeding past him in the opposite direction, he beheld his sister’s face pressed in a pale O against the window. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Meg, her entire upper body thrust from the window of the coach, waving wildly at him.

Ignoring—he really had not time for an idle gossip with Meg and her friends—he lifted his hands to slap his reins against the backs of his horses, but was suddenly struck by the distress evident of Meg’s face. Cursing, he drew up sharply, barely waiting for his vehicle to stop moving before he leapt to the ground.

“March! Oh, March, thank God!” Meg cried breathlessly as she ran toward him along the side of the road. Flinging herself on him, she burst into tears, and over her shoulder, March observed Sally Pargeter and a varied assortment of unknown damsels and their mamas climbing down from the coach.

“Here, Meg. What the devil—?” He shook her gently. “What is toward?”

“Oh, March,” gasped Meg again. “It’s Alison! She has run off to London with Jack Crawford.”

Dumbfounded, Jack stared at the young girl. “What? How—how do you know about this? And what makes you think she has run off with him?”

Meg stared back, openmouthed, her eyes round as coat buttons.
“You
know? How—?”

“Never mind that,” grunted March as the party from the coach caught up with them. Their voices rose in unbridled cacophony until silenced by Mrs. Binsham.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked the indignant matron, her several chins quivering with abandon. “Are you in pursuit of Lady Edith Brent’s companion?” At March’s curt nod, she exclaimed in virtuous satisfaction. “I knew it! Well, you may as well save your efforts, my lord, for the little tart is off and away with that Captain Sharp. No better than she should be, that one is, I’ve always said. That is ...’* she trailed off, quailing before the undisguised malevolence in March’s glare.

“Just what makes you think Ali—Miss Fox is in Mr. Crawford’s company?” asked March coldly, feeling that the thundering of his heart must be audible to the whole group.

“Why, she left a note!” exclaimed Mrs. Binsham, triumphantly proffering a screw of paper to the earl. March took the paper in numb fingers and simply stared at it, his gaze finally transferring to Meg in bewilderment.

“I don’t understand how you are involved in this,” he said. “Any of you,” he concluded, his gaze sweeping over the females.

Meg, perceiving his bewilderment, put her hand on his arm.

“March, it’s all very simple. Let me explain.” In a few words she described the circumstances that had led to her presence in the little hostelry a few miles down the road. March’s features hardened as he listened to her tale, but he forbore to give Meg the scolding she no doubt richly deserved for haring off with Crawford in his damned curricle to begin with. That, he promised himself, would come later.

“We all went outside, as she told us,” continued Meg, “and waited in front of the inn for her. And waited, and waited. Finally, we returned to the private parlor only to find both Alison and Ja—Mr. Crawford gone, and this note left on the table.” She gestured to the piece of paper in March’s hand. “It’s signed by Alison and it says that she has come to the conclusion she would be better off going to London under Jack’s protection than she would remaining in Bath and dwindling into a dried-up old prune. Those were her very words,” the girl added hastily. “But, I don’t think for one moment she really wrote it.”

“You are familiar with her handwriting?” asked March.

“No, but—”

“Really, my lord.” It was Mrs. Binsham again, her prominent jaw thrust before her like the blade of a plough. “It’s plain as a pikestaff that—”

She was interrupted rudely as Finster thrust herself to the forefront of the little group and grasped March’s sleeve.

“What’s plain, my lord, is that some people don’t have the sense God gave a banty rooster. I’d be willing to swear Miss Fox was ready to do that Crawford murder. She wouldn’t any more have run off with him than she would with Old Nick himself.”

Mrs. Binsham swelled ominously, and her mouth opened, only to close swiftly as the earl lifted a hand for silence. Quickly, he ran his gaze over the note, written in a thick, awkward scrawl. No, there was no similarity to the delicate hand he had seen on the note given to him earlier by his aunt. Not that he needed any proof to know that if Alison were indeed in Jack Crawford’s company, she was not there of her own free will. His trust in Alison, he thought almost exultantly, was unshakable. The next moment, he was almost overcome by a wave of pure rage. He had warned Crawford not to make any more trouble for Alison, and the unspeakable cur had dared try once more to ensnare Alison in his wild plans.

Well, we shall see, he mused murderously. We shall soon see. He turned to Meg. “Where?”

“At the Horse and Jockey Inn,” replied Meg. “Just outside Atford. And they must have left there less than an hour ago. Oh, do hurry, March. And I hope you horsewhip that dreadful Mr. Crawford!”

Smiling grimly, March dropped a kiss on his sister’s forehead and climbed once more into his curricle, which soon receded to a point on the horizon.

“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Binsham, after which, discovering that no one was listening, she clambered aboard the coach.

Chapter 22

Alison woke in the darkness beneath the rug to the conviction that her head was cracking in two. Her jaw ached wretchedly, and a vile odor filled her nose. The next moment, she became aware that she had been gagged and bound and that the surface beneath her was moving.

She made an instinctive movement to free herself, to no avail. The only result of her efforts was the sound of soft laughter coming from somewhere above her.

“Awake, are you, Alison? Sorry for my rather rough and ready methods, but you left me no alternative.”

Alison had little difficulty in recognizing Jack’s voice, and she realized with alarm that she was in a moving vehicle that was apparently being pulled off to the side of the road. The next instant, the rug was drawn away from her, and she blinked tor a moment at the sunlight before glaring balefully at Jack.

Her captor then reached to remove the gag. Alison immediately opened her mouth to scream, but Jack cautioned her gently. “It will do you no good to make a fuss, love. As you can see, we are in a deserted section of the highway, and there is no one to hear.” He stared with some regret at the ugly bruise he had left. “I am truly sorry, Alison.”

“You keep saying that,” Alison replied through clenched teeth as she struggled to lift herself upon the seat of the curricle.

Jack’s laugh held the merest hint of repentance. “Yes, I guess that is true, but it is not through my own desire that we keep plunging from one disaster to another. Now, I think it would be unwise to release you, but, if you are very good, I shall not replace the gag. I must warn you, however, that if you so much as squeak during the remainder of our journey, Felcher here will simply hit you over the head.” This last was uttered in such a matter-of-fact tone that Alison had no difficulty in believing him. Alison gaped in surprise at the young man crouched in the tiger’s seat. Jack, observing the direction of her stare, chuckled.

“A gentleman does not set out in his curricle without his tiger, my dear. Meet Twist Felcher. If he has another name, neither of us is aware of it.”

Alison sent a pleading glance toward Mr. Felcher, who appeared to be barely out of his teens, but received only a surly scowl in response. Desperately, she turned to her captor once more.

“Jack, this is insane. Do you not think we will be pursued? How long do you think the others will have waited before coming back to look for me? When they find I am gone—

“All taken care of,” he answered with an airy wave of his hand. “I left a note that I believe will discourage any such interference. By the time anyone should decide to come to your aid, we will be safely tucked away in London, for I plan to stop only briefly—at a snug little hideaway I know of in Fox-field, just off the highway. We’ll be on our way again in the morning before cockcrow, and by this time tomorrow we will have reached our destination.”

“Which is?” asked Alison fearfully.

Jack set his curricle in motion again. “I think I shall not tell you that right now,” he replied pensively. Unceremoniously, he pushed her back to the floor of the vehicle and threw the rug over her head again. “Time enough for all to be revealed to you when we reach London.”

“But, Jack—” she expostulated, her voice muffled beneath the folds of the rug. She was rewarded with a minatory thump on the head.

“Enough, my dear,” said Jack calmly. “Remember—not so much as a squeak.”

Subsiding into her musty prison, Alison gave herself up to a frantic evaluation of her position. She must get free of Jack somehow, for once he got her to London, her situation would become desperate. God knew where he was taking her, and even though it was unlikely that he could keep her a prisoner indefinitely, her eventual escape would leave her little better off than before. A woman alone and penniless in London was prey to evils too horrible to contemplate.