Pleasures of a Tempted Lady (21 page)

“It’s just…” Jessica shrugged. “Well, things are so different now.”

“Yes, they are quite different.”

Just then, one of the maids appeared, running down the corridor from the direction of the stairs. “Oh, my lady, oh, Miss Jessica. There’s three constables downstairs talking with his lordship. They’re going to search the house for Miss Meg!”

“What?” Jessica exclaimed. Serena was already hurrying down the corridor, and Jessica rushed after her, followed by Beatrice, who must’ve heard the commotion. In the entry hall, Jonathan was facing three uniformed men.

“What are you talking about?” he snapped at the men.

The one standing in the middle, a hairy, massive man with a thick black beard, held out two sheets of paper. “We’ve a search warrant and an arrest warrant here, sir, issued by the Privy Council, for the arrest of Miss Margaret Donovan.”

“I am Margaret Donovan.” Serena stepped forward with Jessica at her shoulder. Jonathan threw her a dark look of warning, but she continued. “At least I used to be Margaret Donovan. I am now the Countess of Stratford. What is this about?”

“Good morning, ma’am, miss.” The constable gave Serena and Jessica a curt nod. “We were told this might be a problem. Apparently, there are two Margaret Donovans
who look very much alike, one of whom is a newcomer to London and the other who married Lord Stratford. You’re twins, I believe?”

Now Serena’s face flushed red. “My twin sister drowned eight years ago, and her name was Serena, not Meg.”

“Apparently, she has been using your name as an alias,” the man said.

“That’s absurd!” Serena snapped.

Beatrice slipped her hand into Jessica’s and squeezed tight. Jessica glanced over at her friend, who stared at the men with an expression on her face that was utterly blank. Jessica nearly smiled—Beatrice had been so weak and so vulnerable for so long. Watching her show backbone like this was a welcome, wonderful sight.

Jonathan held out his hand, preventing the men from moving forward. “You’re upsetting my wife, sir. I must ask you to leave.”

The bear-like man shrugged, undaunted. “We will search this property, per our orders. If Margaret Donovan is not here, then we’ll go on our way.”

“I am—
was—
Margaret Donovan!” Serena exclaimed. Jessica, standing just behind her, laid a calming hand on her shoulder.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Bear-man said. “You are the countess. We’re searching for a woman who looks like you and has attempted to steal your identity. Your twin. There is some speculation that you have been hiding her here.”

“What utter nonsense,” Serena spat.

“What crime is this alleged woman charged with?” Jonathan asked.

“Kidnapping,” Mr. Bear said.

Jessica sucked in a harsh breath before she could stop
herself. Despite what Jessica had told him that night at the ball, something had caused the Marquis of Millbridge to suspect that Meg was here. If they found her… they’d arrest her. Prosecute her for kidnapping Jake.
Hang
her.

Thank the Lord she and Captain Langley had left for Lancashire a week early.

Jonathan turned to Serena. “We have nothing to hide here. Let them perform their search and be on their way.”

Looking numb, Serena nodded. They stepped aside, and Mr. Bear-man gave instructions to the other two men. Jessica, Serena, Beatrice, and Jonathan stood in a tight cluster in the entry hall as the three men went in separate directions. None of the residents spoke. What could they say, after all, that wouldn’t reveal they knew about Meg?

They stood there for several minutes, a span of time that felt like hours to Jessica. Dimly, she heard the men in the house questioning servants, who she prayed would hang on to their loyalty even when faced by the intimidating Mr. Bear-man.

They must have, because when Mr. Bear-man and the two smaller constables returned to the entry hall much later, he tipped his hat to them.

“I assume you found nothing,” Jonathan said dryly.

“Indeed, sir. We will continue our search for the woman elsewhere. Thank you for your cooperation.” With that, he and his two constables left the house, leaving Serena, Jonathan, Beatrice, and Jessica staring at each other.

As soon as the front door closed behind them, Jessica’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, God,” she whispered, “what if they find Meg?”

Jonathan released a breath. “I’d send Langley a letter, but I think we’re being watched. I’ll have Briggs find
a way to send him a message. He will need to take her somewhere else. Somewhere safer.”

“Who did this?” Serena whispered.

“It must have been the Marquis of Millbridge, if the Privy Council issued the warrant. Something must have tipped him off that Meg was here.”

“We know he’s been having the members of our household questioned,” Serena said darkly. “Maybe he just received one too many awkward responses.”

“I responded awkwardly,” Jessica said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s not your fault,” Jonathan said. “He’s just outsmarted us.”

They’ll find her,” Jessica whispered. “And kidnapping is a hanging offense, isn’t it? They’ll hang her.”

“No,” Jonathan said firmly. “They will not. We will gather evidence on Caversham, and even if they do find Meg, she’ll be able to prove that she took Jake away to protect him.”

“But you haven’t found any evidence yet, have you?” Jessica pressed.

“Not enough yet. But we will.” Jonathan sighed. “Jessica, I promise you, Langley and I aren’t going to allow anything to happen to your sister.”

Langley and I.
What about
her
? Jessica was Meg’s sister. She should have a hand in keeping her safe.

“Now, we should all go about our day as we originally planned. You must go shopping. Above all, we can’t draw attention to this family right now.”

Serena nodded.

“Very well,” Jessica grumbled, even though she didn’t feel at all like shopping anymore.

They fetched their gloves. Since the day was so warm, they opted to forgo coats. As they went outside and turned down St. James, Jessica pushed her dire thoughts about Meg aside. Determined to behave normally, she tried to have a mundane conversation with Serena. “Truly, I am curious. Why coral for your dress? You don’t usually choose such… bright colors.”

Serena slanted her a look. “Is it too much?”

“Not at all. Just different, for you.”

“I ordered it a few weeks ago, when…” Her voice faded and then she added, “I suppose I was feeling bright.”

“I see.” Jessica did see. Meg had come back into their lives a few weeks ago. Smiling, Jessica linked her arm in her sister’s and squeezed her hand. “I was feeling bright, too.”

“I hope she can come back to us soon,” Serena said under her breath.

“Me, too.”

Serena glanced behind them, then gave a wry shake of her head. “Here I am, breaking my own edict. Talking about things that I don’t want people to overhear. Let’s stop speaking of it.”

“Of course,” Jessica said amiably.

They walked in silence as they turned onto Piccadilly where Jessica stopped in a dressmaker’s shop to look at the few pairs of gloves on display. Not finding any she liked, the two sisters moved on, turning into Regent Street from Piccadilly Circus. Jessica went into a shoe shop, and they emerged only a few moments later. Serena had already chosen her shoes, a simple pair of brown leather shoes with low heels, and had arranged for the shoemaker to send them to her house in St. James.

“Utterly dull,” Jessica murmured as they left the store.

“The shoes or the shopping?” Serena asked.

“The shoes.”

Serena chuckled. “I could tell you despised them by the look on your face.”

“They’re so bland,” Jessica said on a groan, “and they’re the color of—”

“They’re sensible. They’re comfortable. And no one ever sees my shoes, anyhow. They’re always covered by the hem of my dress.”

“
You
see them. That’s enough.”

“Oh, Jess, please. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Their conversation was cut short because they were passing a millinery shop displaying a pair of gloves in its window that fronted the street.

Jessica hurried in and found that it was a quite large shop with rows of lovely evening gloves for her to look at and try on.

She’d tried on five or six pairs, dismissing them as too tight, too dull, too loose, too heavily adorned, when she picked up a pair of simple white kid gloves with a row of delicate pearl buttons.

“Oh, Meg, won’t these look lovely with my pearls?” Jonathan and Serena had given her a beautiful strand of pearls for her nineteenth birthday. She motioned to the shopkeeper to take them out of the case so she could try them on, and then she glanced over her shoulder. “Meg?”

Her sister was nowhere to be found. Quickly, Jessica glanced around the shop. Unless she was bent over something, she wasn’t in here. “Meg?” Jessica called, a little louder, fighting the urge to yell “Serena!” at the top of her lungs.

She spun back around toward the shopkeeper, grabbed her reticule, and tugged it over her wrist. “Excuse me, please,” she managed, and then she turned and dashed out of the store.

The street was busy, with thick crowds of pedestrians strolling, footmen lounging, and fancy carriages lining the curb. Jessica looked this way and that, then ran between two of the parked carriages, ignoring the horse that nudged her shoulder as she rushed by and into the street.

She looked up and down the street with no regard to the traffic that flowed around her or the dust that billowed into her face.

“Here now, gel, this street ain’t for gawkers!” a driver yelled at her as his carriage passed by.

“Would ye like a ride, missy? Easier than walking about in this traffic, I daresay.”

She ignored it all and looked frantically ahead of her and behind her, turning in a slow circle, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might bang right out of her chest.

And then she saw it. About a hundred feet ahead of her, a carriage pulled away from the curb with a bit of coral-colored fabric stuck in the doorjamb and flapping in the breeze.

“Oh, God,” Jessica murmured. “No. Not Serena.”

She spun, turning to the cabriolet driver who’d asked her if she wanted a ride. He grinned down at her from his perch on the right side of the cab. He had ruddy cheeks, bright blue eyes, and thinning blond hair, and she made a split-second decision to trust him.

Not that she had a choice.

She flung her arm out toward the offending carriage,
which was quickly gaining distance. “Yes, I need a ride. And I need you to follow that carriage!”

She ran around the horse and leaped into the interior of the cab, thrusting open the curtains so she could see out the front. She bent forward, out of the open front window, and yelled, “Hurry!” at the driver.

When he only stared at her, slack-jawed, she threw out her very highest connection. “My brother-in-law is the Duke of Wakefield. My sister is in that carriage.” She didn’t bother to mention that this particular sister wasn’t married to that particular brother-in-law. “If you follow that carriage successfully to its destination, I promise you, the duke will reward you handsomely.”

The man’s round blue eyes only grew wider.

“Move!” Jessica roared. Then she blinked. She sounded so much like her mother when she’d yelled at the sisters to do something quickly and properly, it made her stomach twist.

The man swallowed, nodded, and then urged the horse into motion. Just as they pulled into the street, Jessica saw the carriage with the coral fabric sticking out from the door turning left with the curve of the street.

“Hurry!” she cried. “We’re going to lose them!”

The man clucked at the horse, and they maneuvered around a slower carriage and turned, and she spotted the carriage carrying Serena making a right into the Haymarket. It was all she could do not to stand up, leap out of the carriage, and chase after her sister.

“Patience, miss,” said the man in his scratchy voice. “I’ve got ’em.”

Obviously the man didn’t—couldn’t—understand how impossible it was for her to be patient right now.

They turned into the Haymarket, and they gained on the carriage until they were just a few yards behind. When the carriage turned into the Strand, they were directly behind it.

The Strand became Fleet Street, and then Jessica lost track of the streets and began to worry that the coachman of the carriage in front of them, whose back she could clearly see, might realize he was being followed.

She drew the curtain to cover most of her body and face, and peeked out the top. “Do you think he knows we’re after him?” she asked her driver.

“Nay, how’d he figure such a thing?”

Because he’s a bad man, and he knows whoever is inside that carriage has done a bad thing,
Jessica wanted to retort, but she kept her mouth shut. For the first time, she wondered what she’d do when the carriage in front of them stopped. How could she and Serena fight whoever was in that carriage? He might have a knife… or a gun, and all she had was her reticule. It would be ridiculous for her to come at the villains like a blood-lusting warrior brandishing a little silk embroidered purse.

Dash it all.

She glanced around the inside of the cab. Of course, there were no convenient weapons lying about. And from what she’d seen of the driver, he didn’t have anything, either. But there was no harm in asking at this point, she supposed.

“Excuse me, sir?” she asked as the driver turned another corner.

“Aye, miss?”

“Have you any weapons?” she asked hopefully. “A gun, perhaps?”

She couldn’t crane her head out to look at him for fear of someone in the carriage ahead noticing the movement, so she waited through the silence, chewing on her lip.

Finally, he responded, “Ah, no, miss.”

Double deuce it, she thought. She blew out a breath. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. When they stop”—and hopefully they weren’t intending to drive out of London, because she had a feeling the driver wouldn’t be willing to take her much farther—“please continue on a short way. I’ll tell you when to stop. Then I’ll see where they’ve gone, and you can be on your way.”