Libertine's Wife (42 page)

Arianne also realized with
mortification she needed a call to nature soon. Gruber seemed to
ignore those needs in the hours since she was taken.

Arianne rocked in the chair. It grated
against the stone floor and after several tries she fell sideways,
grunting from the pain of hitting the stone floor on her side. She
chuckled as she strained against the ropes, her body bowing
outward. She felt the ropes loosen around her hands. She continued
to move her body in the absurd position until she achieved enough
slack to pull one wrist free.

Arianne lay still and sighed from the
exertions. It was definitely more enjoyable in a bed tied to her
husband. She giggled under the gag again. She used her free hand to
reach back and pluck at the ropes until she at last had her other
hand untied.

Wasting no time, she ripped off the
blindfold and undid her ankles and rose from the floor, staying in
the shadows of the cellar. She investigated the interior and found
a heavy pail in the corner. She tested its weight to see if she
could take Gruber out with it. She decided it would do very
nicely.

Arianne was trying to determine how to
get Gruber’s attention or Sikes. She didn’t hear the commotion
outside the door. With the revelry upstairs, she couldn’t hear
herself think. She did hear the door being engaged and hastily ran
behind it, flattening herself against the wall.

She poised behind the door with the
bucket raised. She waited for Gruber to walk in, ready to clout the
man. The door creaked open. She saw the large shadow enter and
swung with all her might at the man’s head. She heard a grunt of
pain. The man crumpled to the floor of the cellar. She ran around
him and out the door. She ran headlong into the second man outside
the door, bouncing off his hard chest.

~ ~ ~

“
I think you’ve killed him.”
Garret looked down at Julian’s unconscious form on the cellar floor
in pleasure. “It saved me the trouble. Good work, my
love.”

Arianne glared up at him from where she
was crouched as she bent to slap at Julian’s cheeks to roust him
after she knocked him unconscious.

“
Slap him harder than that.”
Garret kept watch of the stone stairs leading up to the kitchens in
the tavern. “Give him a good one for me while you’re at
it.”

“
Be nice, for once.” She
shook Julian, feeling miserable to have knocked him out cold and
not Gruber.

“
The damned man’s been
bedding my wife for months! I’ll not be nice to him, Arianne,” he
snapped testily. “Can’t we just leave him?”

“
No, we can’t just leave him
here!” Arianne said in a horrified whisper and looked at him
reproachfully. “We might have to carry him out of here. I can’t
wake him up.”

Garret looked at the chair on its side
in the corner and the ropes lying there. He was whistling under his
breath. His wife was an escape artist. She did have a knack of
getting out of all his best ties, even the most difficult
ones.

“
We’ll have to carry him. I
can’t wake him, Garret,” Arianne said fretfully as she patted
Julian’s cheeks.

“
I’m not carrying the damned
man. It would serve him right if I gave him to Dench in your
place.”

Arianne glowered at him as she stood.
“May I remind you, he’s helped me twice now dealing with these
brigands? If not for Eustace, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’m not
leaving him.”

Garret smiled widely as a thought
occurred to him. “They could ransom him back to his wife. Lady Vale
would likely pay. A more gracious lady you would never
meet.”

Arianne shook her head. “You’re
impossible! I’m not leaving him!”

Garret shrugged. “No, it would be far
better to have the man head over in heels in love with my wife
forever, causing his own blasted misery. Have you a better plan?
The man’s heavy, Arianne. How do you propose we get him out of here
before another of your adorable captors return? The two we took
down will likely rouse soon.”

“
You’re sure she’ll pay?”
Arianne cursed under her breath for even considering it. She knew
from Dench’s words, he wanted the money. He wouldn’t likely harm
Julian, knowing how much he was worth alive.

Garret grinned wider. “I have every
confidence Lord Vale’s wife will rise to the occasion. Now you stay
here while I seek out something to write with. With any luck, she
gets the ransom note before nightfall.”

“
She can’t be very happy
with him right now, Garret. What makes you think the woman will pay
his ransom?”

“
I have a pretty fair idea
she’ll be delighted to collect her husband.”

“
He’ll never forgive me for
this if he finds out,” Arianne said hesitantly and shook her head.
Garret disappeared upstairs. He returned with a grease pencil and a
piece of paper.

“
The two we knocked out will
claim this switch their handiwork, at any rate, to not anger their
employer when he discovers you gone.”

Garret wrote out a note for the
kidnappers and stuck it on a nail on the door. His chortling all
the while earned him a glare from his wife. They hefted Julian to
the chair.

“
Should we tie him up, do
you think?” Arianne asked and frowned, disgusted to have to leave
Julian behind.

“
Yes, of course. When he
wakes up, he won’t know what happened, Arianne. We will simply tell
him he was accosted and we managed to get away, and he was taken.
He can continue to think he’s your hero. The bloody idiot will
think it a noble sacrifice for love and all that
nonsense.”

She made a face at his sarcasm. “Help
me tie him then.”

Garret chuckled as he and his wife soon
had Julian trussed up in the chair. His green eyes were fairly
gloating as he tied Arianne’s blindfold around Julian’s head. “I
almost feel sorry for him,” Garret said under his breath, imagining
Dru’s delight to come to her husband’s rescue. He had no doubt Vale
would be his wife’s prisoner very soon. Dru would see the obvious
opportunity here. His feisty protégé would pounce upon Vale like a
hungry cat.

“
You don’t think they’ll
hurt him, do you?”

“
I was referring to his
wife. The lady might be far less gentle than Dench and his
men.”

She looked back at Julian worriedly.
Her husband shut the door, leaving the key in the lock. Garret
chuckled at his own cleverness and pulled her up the stairs behind
him. Arianne swallowed hard as she stepped over the unconscious
bodies of Gruber and Sikes lying at the top of the cellar stairs.
They paused to listen. He pulled her behind him. He backtracked to
the outside doors of the kitchen that led out into the alley
beyond.

When Lord Vale’s coach left the tavern,
Arianne read the name of the establishment hanging from the plaque
hanging down out front as they passed. “Garret, this is The Lone
Sparrow Inn,” she said quietly. “Eustace had rooms here last
year.”

His expression darkened. “Vale and I
have already determined its possible your brother is involved in
this. How he is walking around free, we don’t know. I have men
looking for him. We can’t verify he was on the prison ship when it
left port.” Arianne looked fearful and then began fretting over
Julian once more. Garret could take no more. “Fine, if you are that
worried about him; I’ll send a message to the lady myself telling
her where her husband is as soon as we get home. Does that satisfy
you?”

Her husband scowled as he saw the
worried look on her face.

“
She’ll be there with bells
on, Arianne. You can trust me on that.” Garret looked away,
snickering under his breath, earning another reproachful look from
his wife.

“
After all he’s done for me;
this is no way to show one’s appreciation!”

“
I find it more than
fitting, Arianne.” His menacing look silenced her whining. His look
of concern made her tense at his next words. “Did they harm you?
Did Dench’s men—” he couldn’t finish, too overwrought to
finish.

She couldn’t bring herself to tell him
how Dench had used his hand to violate her those minutes in the
cellar while he taunted her of his intentions. He didn’t need to
feel anymore guilt when she told him what Dench relayed to her. “He
knows you, Garret. He said things only someone close to you would
know. He said he wanted you dead all along. That is why he does
this, not because of Eustace, as we thought.”

Garret tensed as she repeated what
Dench said to her in the cellar, watching his face darken with
anger. “Did he say anything else?”

“
He said he meant to make me
a widow and console me later,” she said and winced at his murderous
expression, glad now she hadn’t told him of Dench touching her. “He
made references to me liking being blindfolded, being tied up. He
knows you, my love. How else would he know of that?”

“
He could have learned from
the prostitutes I hired, Arianne,” Garret argued. “Why do you
assume he knows us?”

“
I don’t know,” she admitted
and bit her lip. “It was something in his voice, the way he spoke.
I felt his hatred of you, Garret. He does this because of some
grievance he has against you.”

“
I don’t know anyone by the
name of Thaddeus Dench, Arianne, I assure you, I would recall it if
I did,” Garret grumbled and shook his head.

“
He doesn’t come after us
because of Eustace’s debts. He admitted to me it went beyond that.
How can you deny the man might be someone from your
past?”

“
Perhaps Dench isn’t even
his name?” Garret mused thoughtfully, his eyes filled with unease.
“It could be anyone, Arianne. I have quite a long list of people
who would wish me dead.”

“
He’s a gentleman, I’d stake
my life on it,” she continued on, seeing her husband listen with
rapt interest. “Every inflection in his voice assured me of that.
He is no street thug, Garret, as we assumed.”

“
You are safe and that is
all I care about right now,” Garret said and snatched her off the
seat and held her in his lap, his arms holding her close. “I don’t
know what I would have done had we not found you, my
love.”

Arianne snuggled against his chest,
shivering to think of Dench’s intentions, silently agreeing with
him.

When they arrived back, her husband
dispatched a message to Lady Vale and sent a runner. The one hour
ride to the estate made his wife start to fuss once more. He smiled
at her, trying to distract her from worrying over Vale’s
fate.

“
Three men are here, eagerly
dying for your attentions right now, my dear,” Garret said warmly
as he gazed down at her. “Your sons are up in the nursery. I will
await you in our room.”

Arianne gazed after him with a look of
pure delight. She had to get her hands on her children. She ran up
stairs and opened the door to the nursery. Jaime was playing with
his blocks on the floor. The nurse was holding Stephen and smiled
to see her enter.

The nurse beamed as she got up from the
rocking chair and brought her the baby. Jaime looked up and smiled
brightly at her as if she’d been gone only a day and not months. He
ran to her and hugged her legs through her skirts. She had tears in
her eyes as the nurse shut the door.

~ ~ ~

Arianne was eager as she stepped
through the bedroom door. She frowned when she didn’t see her
husband in the bed waiting for her. She paused as she heard the
splashing sounds from the bathing chamber. She smiled as she shut
and locked their door.

She peered around the door to the
adjoining chamber and saw her husband sitting in the huge bathtub
wearing nothing but a grin as she approached. She was pulling at
the fastenings of her gown already, eager to wash away the feel of
Dench’s hands on her earlier.

“
Turn around and I’ll help
you,” Garret offered huskily, his voice filled with
anticipation.

She swore his hands trembled as they
undid her gown. When she turned and removed her gown, his mouth
dropped to see what she wore underneath.

“
That is definitely not
something one wears to visit their children, or gets kidnapped in,
my dear,” Garret observed as he whistled softly, his eyes tracing
her body in the naughty French lingerie she wore underneath her
gown. It was as scandalous as it was scintillating. He leaned back
to ogle her in the ensemble. “Your intentions of how you wished
this day to end are rather obvious to me now.”

“
Guilty as charged, my
lord,” Arianne agreed as she went to undo the garters before
getting into the tub.

“
Leave them on, my love,”
Garret urged, his eyes filled with smoky desire.

“
They’ll be ruined if they
get wet,” Arianne lamented in dismay.

“
For what I saved on your
ransom, I can buy you hundreds more,” he teased and she stepped
into the tub, her eyes filled with longing.

Garret pulled her against his chest and
tipped her head back to kiss her, his lips hungry and searching. He
brought her to straddle his lap in the water. He grinned as he eyed
her in the naughty costume. “Hundreds more of these would suit
you,” he mused as his hand slid down the strap. “I think I will
never allow you out of our room, and make you wear only that from
now on, my sweet.”