The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (32 page)

An old acquaintance? She didn't understand. Amanda heard a noise and turned in time to see the miller and his family being herded out of a back room by the fellow who had brought Freddie's lie to Storm Haven. "Take them into the mill, Clem," Freddie ordered, lifting a large lace-edged handkerchief to his face even as he quickly turned his back to the prisoners. It was some time before the man called Clem returned to the cottage to tell his master he had done what he had been told to do.

"And what were you told to do? You haven't harmed them?" Amanda questioned him. "I counted six children in that group."

"No, we haven't
harmed
them," Freddie told her in annoyed tones. "Although don't think for a moment that I would hesitate to order it if you don't cooperate with me. For the moment, this good man here has merely drugged them with some concoction that blowsy witch Blanche cooked up in her cauldron."

"Jared will have your hide for this, you bastard!" Amanda shot at him.

"I doubt that very seriously," Freddie drawled back at her, quite finding his element in the role of small but dedicated bully.

Amanda changed her tactics. "You do realize you'll never get away with this madness. We already know of your first attempt on us, which nearly killed our good friends. You should have stayed out of the country. Now you'll all hang."

"And I doubt that even more, dear madam, as you will all be quite dead, and I will have the title and all my lovely money to protect me. As for dear Blanche—just now resting upstairs—she'll have to look out for her own neck once this is over." He examined a small smudge on his lemon-yellow breeches. "But enough of this. I have more important things to concern myself with than that tramp. As for myself, I will emerge from this whole affair completely blameless, and the picture of the bereaved relative. My mourning at the grave side will be most convincing."

Lady Chezwick gave a loud sniff at these words, and turned her head toward the window in dismissal. She did not for a minute underestimate Freddie—or overestimate him, either—and was confident Jared would soon arrive and set all to rights.

Amanda, however, was more inclined to draw Freddie out, as it was obvious he was gloating over his own cleverness. To her mind he was more than a little unhinged; perhaps if she knew his plans she could find a way to thwart them. Freddie drew up a chair near the fire and gladly expounded on his scheme at great length.

It was a complicated bit of deception, she had to admit. The women would all be nice and cozy until Jared and Kevin arrived. That the men would eventually come was certain, for Clem's note, left in clear view, told of the kidnapping of Lady Storm by desperate men who had a grievance against her husband. The note, which also included a demand for a large sum of money by way of ransom delivered to the mill, was the deliberately dangled bait, and one Freddie felt sure Jared could not resist.

"If I know my dear cousin Jared, he will act in his usual arrogant manner, damning the thought of any ransom and charging at once to the mill in hopes of finding, if not you, chit, then at least a clue to your whereabouts. No finesse, our Jared. None at all," Freddie clucked in mock sympathy.

Once inside the mill, Jared and any companions would quickly be subdued and the remainder of the plan put into action. It would all come out as a love triangle that ended in a sad tragedy.

"You seem to have thought long and hard, Cousin," Amanda spat, "but you also seem to have forgotten the miller and his family. They can attest to our abduction at your hands."

Freddie smiled as he answered her, "Ah, that's where Blanche's genius comes to the forefront. She does have her uses, you know. Peter," he said to the young valet who had been standing in the shadows, looking more uncomfortable by the minute, "tell the ladies my name, if you please."

Peter had the decency to blush as he muttered, "As I referred to you so many times in the days we had to stay here until Lord Storm rode out, you are the Earl of Lockport, my lord."

"Exactly. The family has been in that back room ever since our arrival. They've never seen me, only Peter, Simon, and the estimable Clem here. But even so, those country bumpkins couldn't be depended upon to know the difference, one of the gentry being much like the other to them. Peter took great pains to put the miller in his confidence, telling him how you despise your husband and plan to run off with Rawlings—along with a fair amount of Jared's money to speed you on your way. Your plans to do away with Jared by luring him to certain death at the mill, however, will appear to have gone tragically awry, and Jared, come to rescue his loving wife, will slay both faithless wife and best friend in a moment of insane rage."

He ended his little recital then, saying, "With you and your lover both dead, my poor cousin will have nothing to live for save the rope, and in despair, he will take his own life, leaving a note to that effect. You see? It's that complex, and that simple."

There were flaws in Freddie's plan, the most glaring being the unexpected presence of Lady Chezwick, as Amanda was quick to point out.

"An unlooked-for complication, certainly, but I'm not unduly concerned with the old crone. I'm sure Blanche has something in her bag of tricks that will react in much the way as a seizure of some sort, one to which an elderly lady confronted with three tragic deaths might easily succumb."

Amanda forcibly restrained her now raging aunt and tried again. "But the servants at Storm Haven were told Jared was injured. Do you really believe anyone will swallow the story whole about Kevin, Jared's dearest friend, being behind the entire affair? That seems preposterous."

Freddie shook his head as if he were trying to explain simple sums to an ignorant child. "A mere ruse, easily believed as a bit of the hoaxed abduction. As to Jared's great love of Rawlings, you forget you were seen unescorted in the company of both Rawlings and my cousin last Spring. And then there was Jared's desertion of his bride immediately following the nuptials. Obviously yours was not a love match, and so I have informed anyone in London who would listen. Everybody listened, their ears all but wagging at yet another juicy scandal as I told them how you had spurned Jared, sending him away. He played the tragic hero very well while he was in London, and played right into my hands as well. Yes, my dear, your reputation would lead anyone to believe you capable of playing your husband against his best friend, especially now that Rawlings has come into the title. Jared will end up the figure of pity—that really amuses me—when it is found that you carried Rawlings' seed, not his."

Amanda glared at him, so angry she couldn't speak.

"Oh," Freddie went on, "did I fail to mention that, among Blanche's more valuable talents is an uncanny ability to copy handwriting? You see, with samples of your fine copperplate obtained from that poor fool Denton, and various letters taken from Rawlings' lodgings in his absence, it was a simple matter to invent some very incriminating
billet deux
from the both of you. Blanche seems to have a real hatred for Rawlings, for some strange reason. But be that as it may, once several of Rawlings' notes describing the so-called kidnap plot are found in your reticule, and a particularly torrid missive from you agreeing to the idea is taken from Rawlings' waistcoat after his untimely end, there should be a swift finale to any speculation."

Amanda felt her spirits rapidly dropping. Bo had been right all along. Freddie Crosswaithe was a mean, mean man, and not nearly as brick stupid as Jared had believed. "That, I imagine, is also the manner in which you will produce Jared's suicide note?"

"Goodness, yes. You are quick, aren't you? Jared's farewell note is already written. Would you like to hear it? It is a particularly moving piece. I almost wept as I read it. Truly."

"Kevin and Jared both have many friends in London. None of them will believe this havey-cavey plot. You're sure to be unmasked in the end, for there are just too many unbelievable twists to your story."

"That's entirely possible, I suppose, but that won't happen until some weeks have passed. I have no real love for Storm Haven or the title, if the truth be known. It's the money that interests me—and my reluctance to part with any of it to pay my creditors. I see no need to spoil them by finally settling my debts. Do you? No, I shall simply and most immediately withdraw all my inheritance from the Exchange, and Peter and I will depart for sunnier climes. Ah, yes, I do believe between the money and the jewelry I shall be tolerably comfortable."

"And Blanche?" Amanda deliberately watched Peter as she asked this question. He had seemed disturbed when Freddie had spoken poorly of her earlier.

"Not being able to become Lady Storm, she will no doubt wish to settle for some of the Delaney money. She's badly dipped, you know, Wade's money being long since gone. Yes, Blanche believes she will share in the booty, an idea I must confess I fostered." Freddie crossed his legs and leaned back against the seat. "There are storms on the seas between here and the sunny isles I've chosen as our destination, I hear. Many persons have slipped overboard during such violent upheavals. Need I say more?"

The valet's eyes darkened and he quickly averted his head, but not before Amanda had taken in his increasingly frantic expression. So the handsome young Peter was not totally devoid of finer feelings, was he? Perhaps this information could be of some help. The way matters stood at the moment, Amanda was ready to grasp at any straw, or to seek escape at even the slightest opportunity.

When Freddie, his confidence overwhelming his judgment, turned his back on Amanda just long enough for her to make a bolt for the door, much hampered by her skirts and her swollen middle, the fleet Clem had no difficulty in forcing her back into her seat beside the fire with a breath-robbing shove. As her body made contact with the sturdy, unpadded chair, a searing pain ripped down her side and she cried out.

Lady Chezwick was beside her in a moment, asking her where she felt the pain, but as quickly as it had come it was gone. A second pain, more centrally located in her abdomen, came some minutes later, after Freddie had ordered the two women up the stairs, to be locked inside one of the pair of small bed chambers.

Amanda didn't mention the second pain to her aunt, nor did she tell her of the pains that followed after it at regular quarter-hour intervals.

#

Jared and Kevin had spent some three hours at the Squire's holdings, discussing the various precautions Jared had taken to both protect Amanda and keep informed of Freddie's possible return to the city. The Squire had been taken into their confidence from the beginning, Jared believing the man was owed an explanation for the attack on his youngest daughter.

The thin, wintry sun was fast fading as they made their way back to Storm Haven when young Tom came riding toward them at a gallop, waving his hat and screaming at the top of his lungs.

"My God, something's happened to Mandy!" Jared exclaimed, and spurred his horse forward to meet the oncoming rider.

"H-harrow sent me," Tom gasped out as he reined in his mount. "Yer ta come home fast! Miss Mandy's gone."

Jared didn't wait for any further explanation, but yelled at Kevin to return to the Squire's and fetch Bo before leaving Kevin to curse Freddie Crosswaithe in terms so colorful and original that young Tom could only stare at him in open-mouthed awe.

Within minutes Jared's Devil pelted into the courtyard at Storm Haven, where Jared jumped from his mount and bounded up the stairs into his home.

Harrow met him in the hallway and explained he had been abed when Amanda ordered the carriage brought around. "She were told you had a fall, my lord. A man came to lead them to some cottage where you were supposed to be laying close to death."

"When did this happen? How long ago?" Jared shouted while racing to the gunroom, where he took down three pair of his best pistols.

"Lady Chezwick and Miss Mandy are gone near two hours, sir, best I can figure it. As soon as Tom told me, I smelled something queer. Jennings drove them, and you know he's a good man, He'd have had word back by now if he could."

"My aunt is with her? Thank God for that, at least." Jared steeled himself to be calm while he carefully loaded all of the pistols and strapped an evil-looking short sword about his waist.

"What's forward?" Kevin questioned as he and Bo burst through the doorway some minutes later to run at once to pick up the remaining pistols from the table. Before Jared could answer, he was interrupted by an outraged Nanny, who insisted on being taken at once to her baby. "She's near to breeding, you know."

Jared stamped into the blue room, Nanny and the rest close on his heels, and accepted the stiff drink Kevin poured for him. "I know that, Nanny—Christ, do I know that! But we have to idea where she's been taken. I don't even know if they're alive, though I feel almost certain they'll be kept safe until I reach them if I read my cousins' twisted mind correctly. I sincerely hope my aunt is being as disagreeable as she is capable."

"So you don't know where Miss Mandy is?" Nanny all but shrieked. "And I suppose sittin' here swillin' brandy is goin' to find her'?"

Jared's eyes narrowed in anger as he gritted his next words from between clenched teeth. "Get her the hell out of here, Kevin, we've got to think."

Nanny left—as far as the other side of the closed door, that is—so that when the note Jared soon found was read aloud she knew what she had to do.

"Harrow!" she screeched at the concerned old man. "Bring Lady Chezwick's traveling coach around. It's slow, but well sprung, as her ladyship does like her comforts. We must be ready to set out at once."

"Where to, you daft woman?" Harrow asked. His head ached badly with fever, but he would have driven headfirst into hell if he could but find Miss Mandy.

"I heard his lordship mention a mill not that far from here. We'll station our coach nearby and out of the way. Once the dear child is safe she'll need me to take care of her. The old lady will have fallen to pieces by now and be no help at all."