Marshal and the Heiress (36 page)

“It doesn't.”

“Then you have my word,” Ben said, wanting this conversation over so he could be on his way.

“I believe Lisbeth is my sister. My half sister.”

Nothing could have surprised Ben more. His silence prompted Cameron to continue.

“Her father … bedded my mother. I never understood why my father hated me as he did until he told me on his deathbed that I was not his son. He made sure I wouldn't get anything from him except the damn title, but he'd been too proud to admit he'd been cuckolded, particularly by a commoner.”

“My mother's sister finally told me who the man was. My mother claimed he raped her, a charge I wasn't sure was accurate,” he said bitterly. “But then I learned a great deal about my birth father, and it could well be true. Lisbeth was the only decent thing to come from that family.”

“You've never told her?”

“That her father could be a rapist?” Cameron snorted. “I didn't want to add to her pain. But I did want to make sure nothing happened to her, so I arranged the meeting with Jamie, and insinuated myself into their circle. I had a title, meaningless as it is, so it wasn't difficult.”

The implications began tumbling through Ben's head. “You have a reason to want to help her then.”

“By killing you or hurting the child she obviously cares about deeply?” Cameron made an impatient sound. “You're a fool. I have eyes, Masters, even if you don't. She loves you, and she loves that child.”

Ben let the words sink in. He knew Cameron was telling the truth. The story was too crazy
not
to be the truth, and everything fit, including the similarity of Lisbeth's and Cameron's eyes.

“You mentioned that a kidnapper might take Sarah Ann to Glasgow. Why?”

“It would have been easy enough to kill a child,” Drew said. “A pillow over her head when she was sleeping, a fall from the pony. An accident would have been easy to arrange. I think whoever took her has no stomach for killing a little girl. The only alternative was to take her, perhaps sell her to a family who wanted a child.”

“And ships sail from Glasgow,” Ben said, continuing the thought. “I should have thought about that, but Trapp said Edinburgh was more likely. It's closer and an easy place to disappear in.”

“That's logical, too. But I would still bet on Glasgow. And there's no reason for you to think of it. You've been here only a little more than a month.”

After suspecting him for so long, Ben found it hard to trust Cameron. After several moments, he voiced his question. “But who could be responsible?”

Cameron shrugged. “I have no idea. I don't particularly like Hugh, but I can't believe he would stoop this low.”

Frustration clawed at Ben. Frustration and stark terror. “Tell Lisbeth I'm riding to Glasgow.”

“I'm going with you.”

Ben hesitated.

“Dammit, Masters, I know every tavern, every gambling hell, and every rogue in Glasgow,” Drew said. “I stayed there often.”

It wasn't the best of recommendations, Ben knew, but he had little choice. He didn't know Glasgow at all. And the hell of it was he believed Andrew Cameron. He didn't know why, but he did. “I'll inform Duncan—in case Sarah Ann is found, he can send someone after us—but I don't want anyone else to know where we're going,” he finally said.

Drew nodded. “What about Lisbeth?”

Ben shook his head. “She's too trusting. I'll say we're going to search the woods again.”

“I'll saddle the horses,” Drew said.

Ben started back to the house when a faint whine stopped him. “Henry,” he said and ran toward the barely visible figure at the gate. Drew was right behind him.

The dog was dragging himself, barely able to move, and Ben smelled the lingering odor of chloroform. The dog had been drugged, was barely conscious, and yet he had struggled home.

And Peppermint? Ben doubted that whoever had taken Sarah Ann had kept the pony.

Someone had planned this very well. That realization added to Ben's fury. Ruthlessly, he tamped it down. Rage interfered with his thinking.

Ben picked the dog up. Henry whined, his tongue lolling out of his gaping mouth. “I'll take him in to Lisbeth and talk to Duncan. You saddle the horses.”

As soon as Ben entered the library, Lisbeth saw Henry and ran to him. The dog whined weakly.

“He's been chloroformed,” Ben said. “He probably tried to follow whoever took Sarah Ann, and the kidnapper couldn't afford a shot.”

Ben put the dog down, and Lisbeth knelt next to him.

“Brave Henry,” she said as she saw blood on his mouth. “I think he might have taken a bite out of whoever—”

“Cameron and I are going out to look in the woods a while longer,” he said. “The rest of you get some sleep and start looking again in the morning.”

Lisbeth glanced up at him quickly, a question in her eyes. And worry. “Drew?”

“We've reached … an understanding.”

Her face relaxed. “I'll go with you.”

“I think Henry needs you,” Ben said softly.

“But—”

He took her hand, and, ignoring curious stares from the others, he touched her face. “We'll be back … with Sarah Ann.”

Callum Trapp stood near the door by himself. “I'll go with ye.”

“No,” Ben said flatly. “You need some rest so you can lead one of the search parties tomorrow.”

Callum started to protest, but Ben didn't give him a chance. He started for the door, and Lisbeth put a hand on Callum's arm.

“He's right,” Ben heard her say.

Moments later, he and Drew Cameron were galloping down the road toward Glasgow.

Lisbeth nursed Henry, who had been taken to her room, through the night. The other guests had gone to bed, and Callum to his room in the back of the stables.

She left Henry only for a few moments to check on Annabelle, who immediately jumped down from Sarah Ann's bed and rubbed against her legs. It was, Lisbeth thought, as if the cat sensed something wrong, as if she felt a sense of loss. Lisbeth leaned down and picked her up, taking the cat back to her own room.

Annabelle immediately stalked over to a still groggy and sick Henry and licked him, meowing softly and flicking her tail in obvious distress.

Lisbeth wished she had gone with Ben and Drew. She desperately wanted to help, to do
something.
She tried to reason out Sarah Ann's disappearance; she still couldn't believe someone would take a child. Especially someone she knew. Someone in her family. The thought sickened her.

Only Henry saved her sanity. He needed her at the moment. And Ben would be back by daylight, hopefully with Sarah Ann. Ben was wrong; she hadn't been taken. Sarah Ann was simply lost. She had to be. Probably, the missing groom had simply quit after the heavy duties this weekend. Coincidence, that was all. She couldn't believe it was anything more.

They
would
find Sarah Ann.

Ben and Drew reached Glasgow at noon, having ridden their horses nearly into the ground, stopping once to beg use of two fresh ones from a family Drew knew. Once explanations were made, the horses became readily available.

If the kidnapper had gone to Glasgow, he had a day's head start, but he couldn't travel quickly with a sleeping child. At best, he probably made Glasgow in the early morning hours. Sometime during the long morning, Ben started calling his companion Drew, and the two of them developed an uneasy partnership formed by common purpose. Drew directed him straightaway to Broomielaw, where most of the ships docked. They soon discovered three ships were due to leave for America on the evening tide. Another twenty had Scottish destinations.

They had four hours until the first ship set sail, time to visit inns along the waterfront. No one had seen a child, or a man resembling the description of the missing groom. Ben began to doubt Drew's thinking. Perhaps the kidnapper
had
preferred Edinburgh and its numerous trains.

“The whisky dens,” Drew said. “We'll try those next, then the captains of the ships.”

Ben nodded. If the groom had been employed to take Sarah Ann from Scotland, he would wait until sailing time, then try to negotiate a last-minute passage, which would be unrecorded at the custom office. And a frightened man might well go to a whisky den for courage after the flight from Calholm.

“We'll separate,” he said. Two could cover more area than one. If the man was drinking, he wouldn't take a child with him. Too many people would remember. That meant Sarah Ann could be tucked in a slum somewhere or lying unconscious in a vehicle of some type.

If
the kidnapper had headed for Glasgow. It was still a big if. But Ben believed it was true. It made sense. The abduction had been well planned. Unless Sarah Ann had been killed—and he wouldn't let himself even think that—the kidnapper had to leave Scotland as quickly as possible. Sarah Ann was too bright not to ask for help or tell someone where she belonged. The only hope was a ship, and a private cabin, where Sarah Ann could be kept sedated.

Who? The question never left his mind. Nor did the prospect of that person's slow demise. Ben was no longer a lawman. He was no longer bound by a code of conduct.

Drew, with only the slightest hesitation, agreed to his suggestion that they separate. Both remembered Callum's description of the groom: a small man no more than five feet tall, a sometimes jockey, with dark hair and pale blue eyes, and a nervous demeanor. Ben had seen him only once around the stables, but he knew he would recognize him. Drew didn't remember seeing him at all.

Glasgow had exploded as an industrial city during the 1800's, and its streets were dirty, its air clogged with smoke. The large number of working men, including those who worked in shipbuilding along the Clyde River, crowded numerous whisky dens. Ben visited three before wondering whether finding one man was an impossible task. He and Drew had given themselves one hour, then they would meet and visit each departing ship.

Ben found the man at the fourth drinking establishment. The moment he entered, a slender man kicked over a chair in his haste to leave and started at a run for a back hall.

Ben dove after him, catching him before he went more than a dozen feet. The groom crashed to the floor, yelling as he did. The whisky den was half full and the drinkers, some of them ugly drunk, surrounded the two men.

“He be tryin' to rob me,” the groom cried out desperately in Scottish brogue. “A foreigner.”

Mutters rippled through the room and two men approached.

“Let 'im go,” one burly man said.

Ben had brought his pistol with him, tucking it into his belt. In one easy movement, his right hand pulled it from under his sheepskin coat as he dodged a fist. His other hand kept its grasp on his clawing, wriggling prisoner.

“Stay back,” he ordered.

More than a little stunned, the mob moved back. But the muttering grew louder, and Ben saw one man duck out the front, apparently going for help.

“Get up, Baxter,” he told the groom. He put the man between himself and the crowd, pointing the barrel into the man's side. “Where's my little girl?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” the groom said sullenly.

“Then why did you leave Calholm suddenly?”

“Me and Trapp … we had a disagreement.”

Trapp hadn't said anything about that.

“Ye don't see no kid, do you?” the groom said. He pleaded to the others. “'E's a crazy American. Help me.”

But one of the men had been listening. “What's tha' about a bairn?”

“My daughter,” Ben said. “She was kidnapped yesterday, same time this man disappeared. She's four years old.”

“I dinna do anything,” the groom whined. “There's no lass here.”

“What did you do with her?” Ben said, twisting the groom's arm until the man screamed. The den's customers moved in closer.

“I dinna do nothing,” the groom repeated plaintively.

“Where is she?” Ben asked again, tightening his hold on the man's arm. In a moment, it would break. The groom realized it and started whimpering.

“I swear—”

“Where is she?” Ben said again, and this time his voice was like death. “Tell me now or I'll break your neck as well as your arm.”

The groom screamed. The men started closing in again.

Ben turned the gun in their direction. “I'm very good with this, gentlemen,” he said coldly. “There are six bullets, and I won't miss with any of them.”

Tension radiated in the room, and Ben knew it was a matter of seconds before the mob rushed him. He cocked the pistol.

“Found the bloody piece of dung, did you?”

The question came from the doorway. Everyone turned toward the sound. Drew sauntered in with the self-assured arrogance of a true aristocrat. Resentment flashed across faces, but no one made a move toward him.

“And what has the bastard to say for himself?” Drew said with lazy insouciance.

“He's a bit reluctant to talk,” Ben replied.

Drew turned his attention to the crowd. “Do any of you have use for baby snatchers?”

The mutters turned angrier. “Ye mean 'e really took a bairn?”

“Aye,” Drew said.

“'E said this American took 'is money.”

“This American and I have been riding through the night to find him and the wee lass he took.” Drew's hazel eyes were as hard as agates. “We think he was going to take her on a ship to America.”

The leader who had demanded the groom's release stepped closer. “Ye give him to me and my fellows for a while. We'll get wha' ye want to know.”

The groom looked around desperately, then slumped in Ben's hold. “My sister's keeping her. Two blocks away. I weren't going to hurt her.”

“A Scot,” one of the workers said disgustedly, swinging a fist into the groom's stomach.