Scandalous (20 page)

“Mapes?” Will replied, looking blank.

“Yes, Mapes. Your partner. Where is he?”

“'E's out in the woods. That's where we been stayin' the past days, on account o' ye seein' us in town. It's a fearful place, too, I'll tell you. All sorts of noises; things rustlin' and birds ‘ootin' and such. I couldn't sleep at all last night.”

“Mm… Dreadful, I'm sure. I am going to untie you and let you take me to Mr. Mapes at your campsite.”

John went behind him and began to untie the sash from his ankles. When that was done, he stopped. “Wait. I have a better idea. When is Mapes going to come to relieve you?”

“'Bout ‘alfway through the night. That's what we agreed—if ‘e don't cheat me on it.”

“That sort, is he?”

Will gave him an odd look. “Ain't everybody?”

A faint smile touched John's mouth. “Apparently everyone you know is. Well, my good man, I have decided to put you in the cabin, where you so recently kept Miss Hamilton. I shall retie your legs, but more comfortably, and I fear I shall have to use the gag this time. We can't have you alerting your partner, now can we?”

The man rose to his feet and shambled docilely in front of John to the cabin. There John rebound his ankles and gagged him, then left him in the shed, pulling down the heavy wooden bar. He turned, scanning the trees and bushes behind them.

“Come on.” He took Priscilla's hand and led her to a spot behind a small bush, where they were well hidden
in the dark but had an excellent view of the door of the cabin.

“We are going to hide and ambush Mapes when he comes to change the watch?” Priscilla asked.

“Yes. It seemed unlikely that we could get Will to lead us to the correct spot or, if he did, not to make too much noise and give us away. Plus, his feet would be untied, and I would have him on my hands, as well as Mapes. This way is easier, though I'm afraid it will leave your papa in worry a little longer.”

Priscilla quirked an eyebrow. “Papa noticed I was gone?”

“I brought it to his attention,” John admitted apologetically. “I'm sorry. I am sure he would have realized soon.”

“Mm-hmm… When he couldn't find something, or when Miss P. pointed it out to him.” She shrugged. “Don't worry. It doesn't matter. I know Papa better than anyone else. He is a kind and loving man, but not the sort you want to have with you in a bad spot.”

She did not add that John was precisely the sort of man she
would
want to have with her in such a situation. She sneaked a sideways glance at him. He was watching the area around the cabin steadily, relaxed, but with his eyes never ceasing to roam in front of the cabin and off to the shadows on either side. He felt her watching him and turned to look at her. He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Did you mean any of what you said back there…to Will?” she asked.

“What? Oh…to make him talk?” He chuckled. “No. I have never met an Indian in my life, much less lived with them. Nor have I ever tortured anyone. Or, at least,
I don't think I have. It's very strange, not knowing yourself. But those things I talked about—I felt that I was making them up, not talking about something I actually knew.”

Priscilla let out a little sigh of relief.

“I thought you realized that. I thought you were going along with me.”

“I was. I did. When you started talking about the Indians and all, I thought surely, if you
had
remembered things like that, you would have told me. But…at first…well, I wasn't quite certain. You sounded so cold and hard, as if you were capable of anything.”

“I felt cold and hard. After all, the man had abducted you. I had been stumbling through the dark for hours, praying that you were all right and that I was going the right way. Then, when I found you locked in that little dark place and thought about you being in there, scared and alone—” His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed as he remembered the emotion that had swept him. “I was in a rage. I was determined to make him talk, to find out what was going on. To stop those two before they could actually harm you.”

“Oh, John…” Priscilla breathed, stirred by the fierceness of his anger and his fear for her.

He smiled a little at her and reached out with one arm to pull her close. He bent his head to hers, murmuring, “I don't know what I would have done if I had not found you. Or if they had hurt you. When I was searching through the woods, I kept thinking about you—what they might have done to you. How you might be lying hurt, even dead, somewhere. It nearly drove me crazy with fear. If I had found you like that, then I might have killed him. I am not sure I would have been able to stop
myself, or to even think.” He paused. “Thank God you were all right.”

“Thank God you came after me.”

“You knew I would.”

Priscilla nodded. She had never doubted him, only whether he would be able to find his way there again at night. She leaned against him, enjoying the warmth of his arm around her and his hard chest against her shoulder. She had never felt this way before about any man—the surety, the passion, the completeness she felt when she was with him, the emptiness when he was gone. For some time now—ever since he had arrived, in fact—she had been fighting the feelings she had for him. She was not sure why she fought them, or why it was this one particular man who could bring them out in her. She did not know him at all in the way she knew everyone else in her life. But, she realized, she knew who he was in the most important sense.

He was the man she loved.

The thought startled her, and she drew back mentally to examine it. She loved him? It seemed wrong—absurd, even. She hadn't known him long, and it seemed as if they had spent most of their time bickering. Surely people did not fall in love that quickly; surely what she felt was merely an unseemly lust for him.

Yet even as she marshaled her arguments against the idea, she knew deep down that none of them mattered. She had been trying to hide it from John and from her family, and most of all from herself, but the truth would not stay submerged. She loved John Wolfe, and it did not matter that most people would say he was a virtual stranger to her. Her heart had given itself to him.

She knew it in the way her heart leaped whenever he
came into the room, in the way she trusted him to rescue her, in the way she feared for his safety or waited for his smile or melted in his arms. There was no way she could reason herself out of that surety. She found that she did not even want to.

Not, of course, that she would tell him so. It was far too soon, and their relationship was far too unsteady. A declaration of love would be more likely to make him turn and run than to induce him to offer his love in return.

“What are you thinking?”

“What?” Startled from her thoughts, Priscilla looked up at John. “Why?”

“You were smiling,” he explained. “This little secretive smile. It made me wonder what mischief you were brewing.”

Her smiled broadened. “No mischief. But it is a secret. I shall tell you someday.”

“That's guaranteed to arouse my curiosity.”

“When do you think he will come?” Priscilla asked, changing the subject.

John raised an eyebrow, just to let her know that he was aware of her maneuver, but followed her lead. “Our friend Will said in the middle of the night. Exactly what that means, I'm not sure. Nor am I sure that Mr. Mapes will, either.”

Priscilla stiffened, and she gripped John's arm hard. “Look!” she whispered urgently, pointing a finger.

He looked in the direction she indicated, at first seeing nothing. Then he realized that there was a flash of light somewhere in the trees, then another. It grew gradually steadier and brighter until it resolved itself into a bobbing glow. John took his arm from around
Priscilla and moved into a low crouch, leaning forward a little and staring, poised for action.

Finally the edges of the moving light reached the small clearing, and a moment later Will's squat companion came into view, carrying a lantern. He moved without caution, striding forward quickly and even whistling a bright little tune.

“Whistling in the dark,” John murmured beneath his breath. “I wonder—is he confident, or trying to frighten away the shadows?”

Given Will's citified account of camping in the woods, Priscilla was willing to bet that his friend was more scared of the woods and what was in them than he would like to admit.

“Will?” Mapes called as he headed toward the front door of the shack. He lifted his lantern higher and peered at the door, which the glow revealed to be empty of any sort of guard. “Will? Where are ye?”

He walked closer to the door, his back square to John and Priscilla now. Like a flash, John was on his feet and around the bush where they had been hiding, racing toward the man. Mapes heard his approach and swung around. His eyes widened with astonishment, and he froze for an instant, barely getting his fists up before John was upon him.

The fight was brief. Mapes was a bullish sort, accustomed to head-butting and plowing his opponent down to the ground, where his lack of stature was little detriment and his heaviness and muscle were an advantage. Unfortunately for him, however, John was a precise, almost professional, fighter. He stopped just before the man, his long arm flashing out and jabbing the shorter man in the eye. Mapes's head snapped back, and he
staggered. John came in with a blow to his midsection, followed by a solid right fist to Mapes's chin. The man's eyes rolled up, and his body went limp. He weaved and crashed to the ground.

“Good,” John said to Priscilla, who had followed on his heels. “The extra lantern will come in handy.”

He picked it up and handed it to Priscilla, then pulled up the wooden bar across the door. He opened the door cautiously, just in case Will had managed to get free of his bonds. He relaxed when he saw the man still lying bound and gagged.

He turned back and grabbed the limp Mapes under his shoulders and began to drag him into the shed. Priscilla hurriedly set down the lantern and moved to pick up the man's heels. They pulled the heavy weight into the shed and left him on the earthen floor beside his friend. Quickly they went back out and pulled the door to, dropping the heavy wooden bar across it to secure it.

“There. I think that takes care of those two until we get back.” John turned and held out his hand toward Priscilla. “Shall we go?”

Priscilla glanced at the shack. “I— Do you think we should leave him bound like that? Mightn't it cut off his blood?”

“Now you're worried about your kidnapper's health?” John shook his head, amused. “My dear girl, you are going to have to become more callous if you keep hanging about these types.”

Priscilla made a face at him. “May I remind you that it was not
I
who brought those two here?”

“Mm… Fair hit. Well, do not worry. Mapes is unbound. Presently he will come to, and can untie his
friend's bonds. Then they can wait and think about how much they have lost through associating with a ‘gentleman' like Benjamin Oliver. By the time the constable comes to get them, I warrant they will have remembered every possible sin they know about him.”

He picked up the lantern that Priscilla had set aside and relit the one he had brought. They started back the way he had come. As they walked, their steps grew slower. John slipped his arm around Priscilla to help her, and she leaned into him, sighing.

“Tired?”

“Mm-hmm… Are you sure this is the way back?”

“Yes. There's that little glade ahead of us. See?” He held the lantern higher, partially illuminating the small clearing cut off on one side by a large fallen tree overgrown with moss.

“Oh, yes. We came through here that first day, when we found the hut.”

He nodded and guided her over to the large log. “Here. Sit down and rest a little.”

Gratefully Priscilla sank to the ground and leaned back against the tree. She sighed. It had been a long and tiring day.

“I should not have gone to call on Anne,” she said quietly. “I didn't think about Will and Mapes being about. I was simply so irritated with you…”

He looked down at her. “I know. When I got home, I wasn't sure whether to strangle you or run out looking for you. Then, when you didn't return…” He pulled his features into a frown. “Don't do that to me again. Do you hear?”

“I won't—as long as you don't cut me out of all the fun.”

“Fun? It was anything but. It was boring and tiresome and utterly useless. Besides,” he admitted, “it was no fun without you.”

“There. You see?”

“I was trying to protect you. To keep you safe. I didn't want you there if I ran into Will and Mapes again. I didn't want you to get hurt.”

“You see how well going without me ensured that,” Priscilla pointed out sarcastically.

“Only because you were so damnably stubborn that you went sailing off somewhere by yourself, just to spite me.”

“I wanted to visit Anne.”

“Why? What was so urgent that it couldn't wait until I could escort you?”

“Escort me? You think I cannot go anywhere without your escorting me? I should sit in the drawing room twiddling my thumbs until you are available to take me where I want to go?”

“Only until those men were put away. Now they will be, so it will be perfectly all right.”

Priscilla gave him a long, cool look. “Men!” she commented, but her pose of regal indignation was spoiled by the long, jaw-popping yawn that seized her.

John chuckled. “Here,” he said, leaning forward and taking off his jacket. He folded it up and put it down on the ground for a pillow. “Lie down and rest. You are exhausted.”

“But it is so late. Papa will be frightfully worried.”

“I don't think it will harm your father to spend a few hours inhabiting the world the rest of us do. You are so tired you will never make it all the way back to your house if you don't rest. A little nap will refresh you.” He
patted the ground beside him. “I shall wake you before long.”