Miss Impractical Pants (43 page)

***

The commotion downstairs alerted Lady Waverly that all the men and women were in knowledge of the situation and had assembled. She pressed her hand over her free ear to better hear, horrorstruck, Lottie’s account of the kidnapping.

“Thank you for confiding in me, Lottie,” Lady Waverly said. “Please allow Lord Waverly to represent your family to the American and British governments. You concentrate on remaining strong for your son and Katie. God bless you all. Please keep me informed—we’ll be in touch soon.”

Her legs wobbled, but she willed them to carry her down the grand staircase. The room fell silent as the ashen Lady Waverly made her return.

“Well?” urged her husband, racing up beside her to take hold of her trembling hand. “Do you have any news?”

“It was Katie they wanted.” She spoke barely above a whisper.

“What!
A common American girl?”
Esther exploded. “Not my Olivia? There must be some mistake.”

Lady Waverly inhaled a deep, calming breath, trying to refrain from slamming a dainty fist into Esther’s brand-new nose.

“I’m sure this crime wasn’t committed as an affront to Olivia,” Lord Waverly declared.

“As I was saying,” Lady Waverly continued, “the attack went awry and one of the men threatened Katie with a machete.” Her throat constricted and she squeezed her husband’s hand for support. “She has been injured.”

A low hum of murmurs rippled across the room.

Lady Waverly added, “Lucas negotiated with the terrorists to be allowed to accompany her.”

“What a noble act of chivalry!” one lady exclaimed.

“Noble, my foot!”
Esther nearly shouted. “What about my darling daughter? He’s abandoned my precious baby! She’s over there alone, unprotected against those terrorists—those murderers! All for the sake of that American piece of trash!”

Lady Waverly held up her hands, commanding silence. “Esther, it’s certainly not my place to tell you this, but as I know it will be a great comfort to you in this time of distress, I will share what I know. As I understand it, Lucas and Olivia are no longer engaged. I heard it was broken off days ago—before Lucas left for Croatia.”

If Olivia had already shared this news of her breakup with her mother, Esther’s face didn’t show it.

“Lucas and Katie were taken between twelve-thirty and one in the morning,” Lady Waverly continued. “Olivia surprised everyone with her arrival just a few hours ago. You have nothing to trouble yourself over. She was never mistreated, never in danger. She is now safely surrounded by quite a number of Lucas’s family.”

Esther choked out a reluctant thank you, and Lady Waverly’s kind owl eyes fluttered sweetly in response.

“Now that you have been put at ease…” Lady Waverly dropped the phony civility. “You have been very ungracious regarding
our Katie. She is a personal friend of mine. Those of you who met her at the ball the other evening can attest that she deserves of all the prayers, concern, and help we can offer.”

Tears pricked at her eyes. Her concerned plea won a round of refined applause from nearly the entire room. Those who had not attended the ball had certainly heard about it, and the few who had not heard had such deference for Lady Waverly as to honor her wishes without question.

“Have the terrorists made any demands?” a gentleman from the back of the crowd inquired.

“Are there any speculations as to why this happened?” the Unsinkable Molly Brown lady asked. “Is it about the Chatworth diamonds?”

“Very little is known at this time,” Lady Waverly explained. “We do know the terrorists are operating under the misunderstanding that she is of ranking British nobility.”

A few murmurs across the room were interrupted by Esther’s haughty snort.

Lady Waverly shot her an icy glare. “They continue to call her ‘Duchess,’ though Lucas tried explaining to them she is an American.”

“But why her?” someone asked.

“I’m sure it must be for the diamonds,” Unsinkable Molly Brown persisted.

“This just came by special delivery,” Lord Waverly interrupted, returning from having been summoned away by one of the staff. “I’ve already phoned Alistair Drummond of Scotland Yard.”

Escorting his wife to the settee as if she were an invalid, he seated himself by her side and spread the contents of the parcel onto the marble table in front of her.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced as his wife collapsed onto his shoulder. “The kidnapping has now become a matter of Parliamentary concern. We must insist on your cooperation in keeping this matter confidential.”

A beautifully scripted note accompanied the article from the society pages, along with two Polaroid photos of Katie and Lucas, duct tape over their eyes and mouths, the bruising on Lucas’s face seeping far beyond the edges of the tape. Both were smeared with frightening amounts of blood.

While the photos made their way around the room, Lord Waverly cleared his throat and began to read:

This is not an act of terrorism. This is an act of desperation. We know you are not unaware of our current state of oppression. Seeing these photos of your friends, you can now understand the torture we feel every day because we anguish over the fate and health and safety of our family and friends and countrymen. You can no longer pretend that our troubles do not exist. Now, we all share the same sadness. When your hearts hurt over your Duchess and her companion, think of the children of Bosnia and how they must at all times breathe this same pain. Please do not ignore the needs of our people.

The ladies dabbed at their eyes and the gentlemen hung their heads, but no one spoke.

“What have you done? Is this who you think we’ve become?”

The shouting match ensued as Katie was manhandled from the car. Through the winded, huffy breathing of her transporter, she strained to place the angry man’s voice. Despite the now-familiar unfamiliar dialect, she had no trouble recognizing the second voice as Janek’s.

“English please!” the first voice snapped. “We cannot risk for anybody to understand what you’ve done!”

“Please, brother, I need your help,” Janek begged with desperation, shedding his role as militant terrorist.

“No! I will have no part in this! Take them away from here! I have nothing to do with you!”

“The girl!
What I do with girl? She’s dying!” Janek howled.

Dying? Is that true?
Katie’s pain was excruciating, unlike anything she’d ever experienced, but she hadn’t yet considered dying as a real possibility. Would they kill Lucas once she was dead? She could feel the slow creep of panic taking root in her veins. She ached to press her hand against her chest to steady the crushing sensation.

The squeal of a stubborn door brought Katie out of her head and back into the moment. She heard her captor’s footsteps scrape across a stone floor. The temperature dropped a few degrees and she was enveloped by stale air that held the strong scents of farm and dirt. She slid her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to scrape off the strong taste of her environment. She sensed they were in a long-forgotten barn or shed. Whoever was holding her—Mensur, she guessed from his bony frame—shifted, and she felt a blaze of terror as
her body went into freefall. She hit the dank stone floor shoulder first, head second. The cracking sound reverberated in her head, momentarily stalling the pain.
Something inside her snapped—and not just physically.
She fought to right herself, and despite the gag strapped over her mouth, she managed to twist her lips around a series of expletives. “Mummm mmmiidd munnn mm mmiith!” she swore with every fiber of her being. She was rewarded by the slam of the creaking door and the sound of footsteps retreating from the other side.

“Mammee mm mmann mmuuu?”
She heard Lucas’s muffled call and the scuffling of him scooting toward her. Eventually he landed his back against hers. The pads of his restricted fingers gently danced against hers in greeting. She could not have been more grateful to feel his touch. A zing of exhilaration punched through her. She wiggled her fingers in response, contemplating how
not
close to death she felt.

As she toyed with Lucas’s hands, her brain worked feverishly to remain self-possessed—and to find a way out of this…this…nightmare. She would have to remember to find a better word that encompassed the horrors of being kidnapped, beaten, and terrorized. Just then, the smoothness of the duct tape binding Lucas’s wrists caught her attention—or the tiny ridge that interrupted the smoothness. She rubbed her thumb across the seam a couple of times before trying to lift the edge with her fingernail. It was a slow process, but spurred by her fervent desire to escape, and the need to concentrate on anything other than the countless worst-case scenarios she was conjuring in her mind, she was eventually able to lift the edge enough that her fingers could begin pulling at the tape in short increments.

Now free, Lucas sprung into quick action. He pulled the tape from his mouth, then his eyes, which adjusted painfully to the sunlight
streaming through the dirty windows. Removing the tape from Katie’s mouth proved more difficult. The adhesive had captured at least a zillion strands of hair. She reminded herself not to whine—he was doing his best not to rip her hair from her skull. When he eventually rid her of the mouth gag, he smoothed his thumb over her chapped lips and moved on to deal with the tape over her eyes, working as gingerly and patiently as his clumsy man-fingers would allow.

The door creaked and parted a few inches from its jamb. Before Lucas could gain a defensive position, the young boy ran in and flung himself into Katie’s lap, placing his hot little hands on each of her cheeks. Katie’s dormant nurturing instincts sprung to life, causing her arms to fly up and snuggle the boy’s little body against hers.

“Is lady dying?” the boy whispered.

“I’ll be okay,” Katie reassured, holding him.
“Just as soon as I’m able to see.”

The boy hesitated a moment, then wordlessly stood over her and with extreme gentleness began removing the tape from her head as Lucas moved to check the makeshift compress on her leg.

Lucas tousled the boy’s hair. “What’s your name, little man?”

The boy practically melted into a blushing heap of dimples, then snapped his head toward the door in alarm. There were voices just outside.

“Please, cousin. Let us stay one night—then we go.”

Leaving the tape dangling from Katie’s eyes—only one critical piece left across her face preventing her from sight—the boy bolted into a dark corner of the musty old shed and hid.

“No, Mensur!” a voice boomed in response. “You will leave immediately.”

“Then, Stanislaus, we have no choice but kill them,” Mensur threatened.

The wooden structure groaned and rocked as a body slammed into the wall.

“Do not threaten me!” Stanislaus yelled. “We have troubles enough! I will not keep your hostages! I will kill you myself before I let you bring danger and ruin upon what is left of this family!”

The body fell to the ground with a loud thud.

“I will do what I can for the woman,” Stanislaus continued. “Then you must leave and never return to this house!”

The door of the shed burst open. Like a starving dog protecting a fat steak, Lucas hovered in front of Katie. The round-bellied Stanislaus dropped the old-fashioned medicine satchel he was carrying and threw up his hands in a proclamation of peace.