Damsel in Distress? (13 page)

At the end of the recital, Harriet noticed there was a general warming to her compared to when she had arrived. And although no one was willing to come up to her and start a conversation, they at least no longer pretended that she didn’t exist.

“The Duchess of Kensington took a shine to you tonight,” Cressandra commented on their way home in the carriage. “I heard her talking about your gumption or some such thing. How did you manage to acquire her support?”

Harriet continued to look out the window and dreamt about the book lying on the armrest of the settee in the library. “I don’t really know,” she replied.

Chapter 27

The carriage pulled to a stop in front of number 7 Park Street. Cressandra stepped down first, with Harriet close behind. Cressandra stopped to talk with Charles once they had entered the foyer and Harriet made her way down the hallway to the library, pulling her gloves off along the way.

Just inside the library she dropped her gloves on the small side table resting just inside the door. She stopped in mid-step when she heard them fall to the floor instead of landing where she anticipated. Harriet stared at her gloves lying in a heap on the plush carpet. She was so intent on getting to her book, it took her a moment to register there was something wrong. The table was on its side. After living here for some weeks Harriet knew that Mrs Johnson would never allow anything to be in disarray, let alone knocked over.

She slowly turned and looked around the rest of the room, searching for anything else that may be out of place. There was nothing as obvious as the table, but something wasn’t right. Then she spotted it. Her book. It was missing.

“Cressandra?” she called over her shoulder as she walked further into the room, looking for anything else not quite right. “Cressandra,” she called again.

No answer. Perhaps Cressandra had already taken herself up to bed. Harriet went back to the doorway to see if she could find her.

The person she did see in the corridor was not her friend.

The person she saw was a great hulking man with a big bushy beard and wild hair.

***

He’d managed to find an empty room. Philip squinted at the bottle on the table before him. The bottle swam in and out of focus. He reached his hand out to stop it from moving around the table. He managed to grasp it around the neck without tipping it over and brought it to his lips. He had long forgone the glass. What was the point? No matter how often he refilled it, it didn’t seem to stay anything but empty. Now the bottle was empty as well. The last drop rolled onto his tongue.

Damn that woman anyway. He couldn’t get the feel of her lips off his. The alcohol did nothing to numb that sensation. If anything, he could feel her all the nearer. The alcohol fuelled his imagination and he could now smell her in the room with him and on his clothes. He lifted his head off his chest –he hadn’t realised it had fallen – and looked around the room. If she was in here, he couldn’t see her. The world around him swayed and rolled and stubbornly remained out of focus. He grasped the arm of the chair he was sitting in tightly to stop it from tossing him onto the floor.

Noises from below startled his head back off his chest again. He lost the grip on his chair and tumbled out of it. The noises abruptly stopped. Philip struggled to clear the alcoholic fog from his mind. There was something niggling in the far reaches of his thoughts, something important. Something that made him struggle to his feet and make his way to the door.

Low voices reached his ears. He propped himself against the wall in the hallway and strained to make out what they were saying.

“They’re not here.”

“I heard the servants talking. One of them said they went out for the evening.”

A growl emitted from someone’s lips.

“It’ll give us a chance to search for the packet.”

“Keep your voice down, we don’t want those servants you were talking about hearing you.”

The packet. Suddenly everything zoomed into pin-point focus. The alcohol evaporated from his system and he was able to think more clearly than he ever had before. He didn’t know what was going on, but he did know that there was someone in his house looking for Harriet and the package she came with.

But where was Harriet? He had told her to stay in the house, hadn’t he? No, now that he thought about it, he realised he hadn’t said any such thing. He prayed that by some miracle she had gone out tonight.

Philip crept down the servants’ stairs, carefully avoiding the loose floorboards along the way. He was almost at the bottom when he heard her scream. The blood stopped in his veins at the sound.

No longer caring if he woke the dead, he careened the rest of the way down the steps, leaping the last two and skidding across the floor. Two men he recognised from the park stood at the end of the hallway in front of Harriet’s room. They stopped in mid-conversation when he appeared.

“There he is!” one of them shouted. The men advanced on him, slowly, as though they had all the time in the world.

Harriet screamed again and Philip realised the time
he
had was limited. He needed to get to her and get her to safety. He shifted to the balls of his feet. He would make this quick.

“We been looking for you, Lord Eaglestone.” The leader smiled mockingly. “Lucky that lady in this morning’s paper told us exactly where to find you. Our luck you’re at home too.” He cocked his ear to the sounds coming from the main floor. “Sounds as though our Princess is here too, doesn’t it? Harry will take care of her.”

“Princess?” He wasn’t expecting that.

“That’s what we like to call her. Now,” both men took a step closer, “why don’t you make things easy on yourself and tell us where the packet is?”

“What packet?” Philip wasn’t telling them anything.

The men exchanged looks. “We’re not as stupid as you look, Eaglestone. Where is the packet?” The leader spoke again, this time while he was cracking his knuckles.

Philip waited until the other man took two more menacing steps towards him before he stepped back with one foot and braced himself. The fist he drove up into the man’s jaw was clearly unexpected. He hadn’t been going to The Turks sporting club since he was at Eton, for nothing. He felt bone crunch upon the impact and he hoped he’d broken the man’s jaw.

The man crumpled to the ground but before he could relish the victory the second man rushed at him, tackling him about the knees. They both went down in a heap. Philip didn’t waste time on finesse, instead opting to throw punches wildly, connecting with soft paunchy stomach and hard head alike. They rolled across the hallway, close to the staircase which led to the entrance of the house.

The man had a hold of Philip’s neck from behind. Oxygen was having trouble getting to his brain and stars started to appear in his vision. With one last heave, Philip managed to get onto his hands and knees. He bucked the man forward over the top of his shoulders and down the stairs he went. Philip crouched on all fours at the top and watched the man somersault to the bottom. It was a few moments before he was able to suck in enough air to make it to his feet. The man he had first hit was starting to stir.

He cast one last look at the man before he stumbled down the stairs to search for Harriet.

***

The man in front of Harriet smiled. His great mouth was full of great white teeth. She imagined this was what it would look like to stare at the mouth of a shark. A scream escaped from her lips and startled her enough to make her take a step back.

The man’s smile slid from his face and he took a step towards her. “I’m not gonna hurt ya,” he said. Concern crinkled his brow.

“Stay away from me! I know who you are!” Harriet couldn’t control the volume of her voice. She sounded shrill to her own ears. She backed away with each step he took towards her, essentially trapping herself in the library.

He reached out a hand to stop her going further and she screamed again when he caught her sleeve. “Let me go!”

“Quiet! I’m not going to hurt ya.” His barked order stilled her and for some unexplained reason she believed him. “Now listen, I only have time to say it once.” He waited for her to nod. “There are two more men here with me. They are upstairs searching for a packet you arrived here with. I must have that packet before they get it. Do you know where it is?”

Harriet shook her head. Although she knew who had it, she didn’t know where it was.

“Are ye sure? If the men upstairs find it, it’s all over.”

“It’s not upstairs,” she managed to say.

“Is it down here?” He cast a look about the room as though he expected it to leap off one of the shelves for him.

Again she shook her head.

“Do you know what is in it?”

Harriet looked into the man’s eyes and thought there was something in them that was familiar. “I don’t remember,” she said.

“Ye don’t remember? How could ye forget?” he asked disbelievingly.

“I was kicked in the head!” He was making her angry now.

“I suppose that would do it.” The man before her smirked.

They both turned towards the door. There was a commotion on the stairs. The man released her abruptly. “I got to go.” He retreated to the doorway.

“Wait,” she called. “What’s your name?”

“They know me as Harry, but you can call me Rupert.”

He slipped out the door and was gone. Moments later Philip skidded into the room, looking around for the danger.

“Where is he? Where is the third one?”

Before she could even open her mouth to answer, Charles appeared at the door. “My Lord? There seems to be some unwanted visitors in the house tonight.”

“Yes, Charles,” Philip panted, clearly out of breath, “I was aware of that. Take the footmen and round them up, will you?”

“Very good, sir.” Charles bowed low and left the room.

“Harriet,” Philip breathed. “Are you all right?” He stepped closer.

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. Her legs were wobbly and she had to sit down. She made her way over to the settee and collapsed into it.

“I need to go and help. But before I go, I need to know where the third man is.”

“He’s gone.” The pounding in her chest was quieting down and she could breathe easier now. “He didn’t want to hurt me. He
didn’t
hurt me,” she said.

Philip physically relaxed somewhat. A small smile turned up one side of his lips. “I’ll be right back. Lock the door.” And he was gone.

Chapter 28

“They’ve escaped,” Philip said as soon as she unlocked the door to his knock. “We need to leave in case they come back tonight.” Philip swayed were he stood and for the first time Harriet took in how green he looked.

“Philip, are you all right?” She placed a hand on his arm to steady him.

He shook his head. “No,” he groaned.

She looked him over, frantically trying to find out where he was maimed. “Where are you hurt?” She could hear the panic rising in her voice.

“I twisted my ankle coming down those stairs and I’ve got bruised ribs, but that’s not the problem.”

“There’s something worse?” she asked. Fear threatened to choke her.

“I had too much to drink.” He slumped against the wall beside the closed library door and held his head in his hands.

“What?” Her breath left her body in a great rush.

He spoke each word deliberately: “I. Had. Too. Much. To. Drink.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, you’re drunk?” How could he frighten her like that?

“No. Not any more.” He slid to the floor and rested his head on his knees. “The carriage will be ready soon, why don’t you go upstairs and pack some overnight things?”

In less than half an hour, Philip was handing both her and Cressandra into the carriage. He hopped in behind them, settled himself next to Cressandra and shut his eyes.

“What is going on, Philip? Why are those men in my house?” Tears glistened in Cressandra’s eyes. She blinked and one overflowed and trickled down her cheek.

Philip remained silent. Upon closer inspection Harriet thought he looked even greener than before. She wondered if the alcoholic fumes where coming from him, not from the inside of the carriage as she had first thought. If they were coming from him, it was a wonder he was still able to sit upright; her eyes were watering from the intensity of the vapours.

Harriet leaned across the carriage and whispered, “Are you all right, Philip?”

He opened one eye and gave a small shake of his head. She noticed he had his teeth clenched tightly together.

“Would you like us to stop for a moment?”

Again he gave a small shake of his head. He shut his eye again.

“You might feel better on this side of the carriage, at least you will be facing forwards.”

Without so much as opening his eyes, he shifted next to her.

“Do you want me to sit next to Cressandra? You would have more room.” She made to move but his hand shot out and grasped hers and held it tightly in his lap. She tested his grip by trying to gingerly remove it from his hold, but his clasp was unbreakable.

Harriet looked up from where their hands were resting and encountered Cressandra’s intense gaze. Philip’s sister raised an eyebrow and then turned her head and looked out the window, tears still seeping down her face.

They didn’t travel very far. The traffic was slow and they were trapped in the brandy-infused enclosure for close to an hour, but Harriet was sure they hadn’t travelled more than a mile or so to their destination. It would have been faster to walk. She looked at Philip. Well, maybe not.

He slumped in the seat next to her and his head rolled on his neck with every sway of the carriage. He had fallen into unconsciousness not long after he grasped her hand. She had tried to extract it back, but he still wouldn’t relinquish his hold.

They rolled to a stop outside a grand house and a footman rushed to open the door. The red of his coat stood out in the darkness and she had to admit that he cut a mighty fine figure in the tailored uniform. Before she could admire him further, the butler descended the stairs and peered into the carriage and gave a long-suffering groan.

He climbed into the vehicle himself and heaved Philip out onto the pavement. The footman managed to catch him before he made contact with the ground, sparing his face from permanent damage.