How I Married a Marquess (34 page)

It was time to set her free.

T
he gaol
door burst open and slammed back against the wall with a splitting bang.

Startled, Josie jumped up from the cot and raced to the cell door just in time to see her three brothers charge inside, their hands clenched into menacing fists, with the baron and baroness quick on their heels. Behind them, bringing up the rear, bounced Miranda Hodgkins.

“Oh no,” Josie groaned, her chest sinking. The last people she wanted to find her like this…

“There she is!” Sebastian pointed toward the cell, and her mother's hands flew to her mouth in horror as she screamed.

“Mama, please!” Josie tried to reassure her, but her outstretched arm through the bars only terrified her mother more. “It's all right. I'm fine.”

“Josephine, what on God's earth happened to you?” Her father took her stunned mother by the shoulders and gently handed her to Quinn, who grinned at his sister with unabashed glee and a touch of admiration. Then Papa came forward and reached a hand through the bars to affectionately cup her face. “Miranda told us we would find you here.”

“Miranda?” Stunned with confusion, Josie looked at the girl, who absolutely beamed with happiness to find herself at the center of attention.

“It was Lord Chesney!” Miranda practically squealed, clasping her hands together at her chest. “He told me in the drawing room that he trusted me to relay a very important message about you being here.” Her head nodded rapidly in confirmation. “He asked me to do him a favor…a
personal
favor.”

Josie blinked. “He asked
you
, of all people, to—”

“Josephine, why are you here?” her father demanded, reaching the end of his patience.

Dodging Papa's disapproving scowl, irritation replacing worry now that he knew she was safe, she lowered her eyes in humiliation at the idiotic lie she was forced to tell about herself. “I came to visit Mr. Cooper, and I…accidentally locked myself into the cell.”

That stopped them all cold, each of them staring at her silently. Blinking in wonder. As if she'd just admitted to accidentally setting London on fire.

“You did
what
?” her mother exclaimed incredulously, batting away Quinn's hand on her arm.

Her shoulders sagged. “I accidentally locked myself into the cell,” she repeated as her cheeks heated with mortification. “I felt terrible that Mr. Cooper had been arrested, so I went down to the kitchen to fill a basket. I brought it here, but the constable and his men were away, so I went looking for a way to put the basket into his cell and accidentally shut the door on myself.” Oh, she felt like the village idiot! “Isn't that right, Mr. Cooper?”

“Yes, miss, exactly right,” John Cooper agreed with her story, which had sounded so much more believable just minutes before
when they'd practiced it together.

“That's the food, right there.” She pointed in the direction of the basket sitting at the back of the cell, left in plain sight to easily confirm her fake alibi.

“You were looking for a way to give him a basket of food,” her father repeated incredulously.

“At midnight,” Sebastian added.

Robert put in, “In the adjoining cell—”

“And got yourself locked in!” Quinn finished with a laughing grin, ignoring his mother's orders to shush. Behind him Miranda giggled.

Josie gritted her teeth in embarrassment. If she ever saw him again, she promised herself, Thomas Matteson was going to pay for this. And dearly.

Judging by the suspicious look on her mother's face, however, Elizabeth Carlisle did not believe a word of the story. “We'll discuss this later.” She waved her hand in frustration at her husband and oldest son. “Now release her so we can all go home and put this night to bed.”

While Sebastian stepped forward to try the barred door, rattling it futilely in his fists, the baron searched through a desk in the center of the small room, hunting for the keys.

“There's nothing here to unlock it,” her father mumbled, slamming a drawer closed.

Josie's chest plummeted. Colonel Grey was responsible for that. Of course they wouldn't find any keys, because he'd surely taken them all in case someone came by and tried to let her out before Thomas's plans for the night were over. Oh, how
dearly
he would pay!

“Then we'll get a sledgehammer and bust her out,” Robert decided, which caused Quinn to grin even more broadly and rub his hands together gleefully at the prospect of tearing down the wall.

Josie's eyes widened. Apparently there was going to be a gaol
break tonight after all.

“You are
not
busting down that wall!” their mother exclaimed.

“But it won't take long,” Robert assured her. “A few good whacks—”

Quinton interjected, “Just a couple of swings—”

“And we'll have her right out,” Sebastian finished.

Her mother imperially arched her brow. “I said no!”

“What the bloody hell!” A cry of surprise split through the loud arguing.

Constable Rivers pushed through the doorway and stared in bewilderment at the four men crowding his gaol
.

Then he saw the baroness and, with his face reddening, he snatched his hat from his head and gave her a polite nod. The two men behind him did the same. “Beg yer pardon, my lady.”

“Rivers, get my daughter out of there,” her father demanded.

The constable glanced over his shoulder toward the cell that should have been empty, saw Josie peering out at him through the bars, and then snapped around to face her, his spine going ramrod-straight. “How in the world…
Miss Carlisle
?”

She nodded from behind the bars with a polite smile. Oh, she was mortified! “Good evening, Mr. Rivers.”

“How—how did you— Why are you—” He gaped at her in stunned confusion, opening and closing his mouth in bewilderment like a caught fish.

“She accidentally locked herself into the cell,” Miranda piped up helpfully.

Rivers blinked. “You did
what
?”

Her hands covering her face in overwhelming embarrassment, Josie sagged against the wall, her cheeks hot and tears stinging at her eyes.

She supposed she deserved this, that this was her due punishment for the past two years of lying and breaking the king
's laws. And she now knew exactly why Thomas had wanted her locked up
here
, when he could have just as easily locked her into the cellar at Chestnut Hill, tied her up and left her at the cottage, or found any one of a dozen other places to stash her for the night where he could be assured she wouldn't endanger herself or get in his way during whatever he'd plotted.

No, she realized as her heart thudded hard with humiliation. He'd wanted her to be discovered behind bars by her family in order to drive
home how much she cared about them and how much they truly loved her. If she was mortified that her family had found her like this, presumably behind bars because she'd innocently locked herself in, then how unbearable would the humiliation, scandal, and ruination have been if she'd been placed under arrest for being the highwayman?

And Thomas was right. As she looked at her family now, all of them concerned over her safety, not one of them was willing to leave her here for the night, no matter what they had to do to free her. She had been so wrong to ever doubt
her place in their lives or their love for her. A tear rolled down her face as she glanced from her mother to her father with love swelling in her chest, and then she laughed through her tears at her brothers as they still insisted to the constable that the most expeditious way to free her was to knock down the wall. This was her family, now and forever, and finally she believed in her heart that she would have them with her always.

“We could get some gunpowder and blow open the lock,” Quinn suggested helpfully.

Josie pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and stifled a tear-filled laugh. Dear God, how much she loved them!

“No gunpowder,” her father chastised Quinn. Then he gruffly ordered Rivers, “Release her.”

The constable shook himself and started toward the cell, reaching for the ring of keys tied to his belt. “Of course, your lordship.”

“I blame you for this, Rivers,” her father continued, despite the gentle hand his wife placed on his arm to check his anger. “Why was there no one here tonight on watch?”

“Don't usually keep anyone on watch overnight, sir,” Rivers explained, jangling the three keys and trying each one in the lock, frowning when none of them fit. “No need for it.”

“But you and your men are all here now.”

“Aye.” His frown deepening, he went through all the keys again. “We'd gotten a message tonight that the highwayman was going to strike again and rode out to catch him.”

“But that's impossible!” Josie squeaked.

“Impossible, all right,” John Cooper echoed quickly from his own cell, drawing everyone's attention as he lunged toward the door, his hands folding around the bars as he glared at Rivers, “since you had me locked up for being the highwayman. So either the highwayman didn't rob anyone tonight, or I ain't the highwayman!”

Josie tilted her head as she listened to her old friend, her lips parting suspiciously at the rehearsed tone of his speech. He had known there was going to be a robbery attempt tonight. He'd
known
! And with both of them behind bars, no one would ever be able to place the blame for the robberies on either of them. Their alibis had been literally locked up tight, thanks to Thomas.

The constable's bald head reddened. “There
was
a robbery,” he grumbled as he momentarily gave up on her door and stepped over to the adjoining cell to unlock it. “Earl Royston himself.”

Josie's hands tightened on the bars. “What?”

“You'd better let me go right now, then,” Cooper demanded angrily, his loud voice drowning hers out.

Rivers gritted his teeth as he unlocked the door and swung it open, then stood face-to-face with the tall, lanky farmer. “I still don't think you're innocent in all this, Cooper. You had that horse at your farm.”

Josie held her breath, her heart hammering fearfully as she watched the two men stare at each other. She waited for the constable to finally comprehend what events had unfolded tonight, for John Cooper to admit the horse was hers, for the details of the robberies she'd executed so carefully over the past two years to finally be revealed—for her life to end.

“I told you, Rivers,” Mr. Cooper insisted, still protecting her. “That horse jumped the fence and ran up to the trough where I feed my own team. The beast was still under the saddle when you found it, weren't it? Think I'm daft enough to ruin a perfectly good saddle and bridle by leaving 'em on a horse in a lot with a farm team?” When the constable obviously didn't believe him, Mr. Cooper tossed up his hands and scowled. “Bah!”

Neither the constable nor his men tried to stop him as he stalked from the gaol
, out the door, into the night—

And right past Thomas Matteson as he leaned against the doorway, his arms folded across his chest, curiously watching the scene unfolding before him.

“I think I can explain,” he offered casually.

All at once everyone began to talk at the same time, squawking and quibbling like a flock of chickens, with Althorpe confronting the constable and demanding that his daughter be released immediately, the constable confused because he didn't have the right key, the Carlisle brothers turning on the constable's men, and her mother rolling her eyes sharply at Miranda Hodgkins, who clapped her hands gleefully at all the excitement.