The Black Widow (28 page)

The room was empty, and her nightgown lay in a heap on the floor. There was nothing to be seen that was the least bit sinister, and yet he knew at once that he had made the most appalling miscalculation.

Coming up behind him, Hennessey glanced around, then said, “She might be having breakfast in the morning room. We do not yet know whether ...” He did not end the sentence. He did not need to. They both knew that disaster had struck from an unexpected direction.

Uncle Humphrey came puffing up to join them. “Not a good idea to burst into a lady’s room unannounced, don’t you know. Might find yourself in a compromising position. Though I don’t suppose it matters since you are marrying the young lady today anyway.” Gazing around the empty room, he also grew silent.

“Which room is her sister staying in?” Hennessey asked, but Demetrius was already striding down the corridor.

This time he knocked on the door, but there was no answer. When he tried to open it, he found it locked. He yelled Hester’s name and pounded loudly enough to wake the dead, and several shocked servants began to collect a safe distance away. Turning to them, Demetrius bellowed, “Fetch Mrs. Berriball, and tell her to bring her set of keys.”

One of the footmen scurried to do his bidding, and behind him another voice added to the general confusion. “Just what do you think you are doing pounding on my niece’s door at this hour? And in your shirtsleeves to boot. Have you no decency at all? No sense of shame that you are roaming the halls half-dressed?”

“Get rid of that woman,” Demetrius muttered under his breath.

With a wicked smile that was almost a leer, his uncle began walking purposefully toward Miss Phillipa Prestwich, who with a squeal of alarm backed up into her room, slammed the door in his face, and then turned the key in the lock.

Obviously pleased with his prowess at terrifying spinster ladies, Humphrey returned to where Demetrius was standing frustrated by the door to Miss Hester’s room. “Why do you think she locked herself in?”

“I don’t think she has,” Demetrius replied. “I think...” He did not want to say the words, but he finally managed to force them out. “I think she has changed her tactics. Instead of preventing the wedding by killing the prospective groom, I believe she has ...”

His mind tried not to accept the horrible visions his imagination insisted upon showing him. “I very much fear she has done something wicked to Meribe. I think we will find the room empty.”

He was wrong.

When Mrs. Berriball, the housekeeper, appeared with her keys and opened the door, they found Hester lying unconscious on the floor. Jane ran forward and knelt beside her mistress. “Oh, she is so cold! I fear she is dead!”

Joining her at Hester’s side, Demetrius ascertained that the unconscious woman was still breathing, and her pulse was weak but regular. But she was indeed quite cold, and his attempts to wake her failed. “I suspect she has been drugged,” he said, “and she is definitely suffering from exposure.”

He picked her up and carried her to the bed and tucked her in under the covers. Behind him, Jane began ordering the servants around as if she were the mistress at Thorverton Hall and not merely a visiting abigail. “You, there,” Jane commanded, “build up the fire, and be quick about it. And someone fetch some hot bricks. We need to warm up Miss Hester before she succumbs to the effects of the cold. And tell the cook we shall need a pot of hot tea with plenty of sugar in it for when Miss Hester wakes up.”

But Demetrius was not about to reprove her for stepping out of line. He was more than willing to turn the task of taking care of Meribe’s sister over to whoever was competent to handle it, so that he could organize a search for Meribe herself.

His mind already turning to other, more desperate matters, Demetrius went back out into the corridor, followed by his uncle, who was plaintively asking him to explain what was going on.

Before Demetrius could begin to organize his thoughts, Hennessey emerged from a room close by. “Rudd has flown the coop,” he said. “It would appear that we have been thoroughly hoodwinked.”

“Impossible,” Humphrey said with a snort. “That little dandy is not strong enough to force Miss Meribe to go with him. If ever I met a puny weakling, he is one.”

“He does not need muscles,” Demetrius replied. “All he needs is the other silver-chased dueling pistol.”

Hennessey and Humphrey were silent, and Demetrius knew their thoughts were going along the same path his were, especially when Hennessey said, “Well, at least we can be assured that he won’t kill her. The only way he can successfully get his hands on Sir John’s fortune is to marry Miss Meribe.”

“And he cannot force her at gunpoint to marry him,” Uncle Humphrey pointed out.

“Can he not?” Demetrius asked, unable to keep the anger out of his voice. “Perhaps not in this country, but I am sure in Scotland or on the Continent he can find someone to marry them who will look the other way and pretend not to notice that the bride is unwilling. And we are so close to the sea, he can have her on board a ship within two hours after leaving here. To make matters worse, we have no idea when he kidnapped her. They may have already sailed with the tide.”

His friends could think of nothing to say in the way of encouragement, so without further delay Demetrius went to the stables and began to organize a search, praying the whole time that it was not already too late. With all his heart and soul, he wanted Meribe there safe beside him, but he had an ominous feeling that it would take more than wishing to get her back.

And suppose he did not succeed? Suppose she was lost to him forever?

Already he felt such loneliness as he had never before experienced—as if a part of himself had been cruelly ripped away—and the pain was more than he could deal with. Only by ruthlessly pushing all thoughts and memories of her into the darkest corner of his mind was he even able to saddle his horse and lead it out into the courtyard, where he was astonished to see a dusty black coach pull up and stop.

* * * *

“What is this? Why are we stopping?” Lionell looked out the window, and quicker than Meribe would have expected such a large man to move, the stranger seated opposite them reached over and plucked the dueling pistol from Lionell’s hand.

“What? Here, now, you can’t have my gun. Give it back!” Lionell blustered, but to no avail.

Flicking the fancy pistol into his side pocket, the ruffian now pointed his much larger gun at the little dandy. “Lionell Rudd, I arrest you in the name of the crown.”

Just then the door was flung open, and the driver of the coach reached in and grabbed Lionell by his lapels and dragged him bodily out of the coach. Astonished at this turn of events, Meribe scrambled out after them, and tumbled right into Demetrius’s arms.

Ignoring the people around them, he kissed her quite thoroughly. Like a totally shameless hussy, she kissed him right back.

“I do not understand,” she said when he finally allowed her to speak.

“Nor do I,” he replied. Keeping his arms firmly around her—not that she wanted to be anywhere else but right there hugging him—he turned to the men who had assisted Lionell in abducting her. “You look familiar,” he said to the larger one. “Are you not the Bow Street runner I hired to fetch back my brother?’’

“Indeed I am, m’lord. Josiah Stevens, at your service. ‘‘The man was grinning from ear to ear.

“Then ...” Demetrius turned to the other, more lanky ruffian, who straightened his back, stripped a fake mustache off his face, pulled off his dirty cap, and stood revealed as ...

“Collier! What the deuce?” Demetrius began to laugh.

His brother merely smiled. “You must accept some of the responsibility here, Demetrius. After all, if you had not sent Mr. Stevens after me, as if I were a recalcitrant child to be dragged back home, then he and I would not have had all the long ride from Reading to London in which to plot this course of action.”

“And thanks to this young lady’s persistent questioning,” Stevens added, “we have all the evidence we need to convict this villain. In my presence Rudd freely and without coercion confessed to murdering two men and to arranging for the deaths of three others. There is no way he can escape the gallows.”

Remembering her sister, Meribe felt a sudden panic. “Hester—he told us he drugged her, perhaps even killed her. Is she all right?”

“It appears Rudd gave her only enough laudanum to ensure that she did not interfere with his plans,” Demetrius reassured her. “And I have left Jane in charge of her.”

But Meribe could not rest easy until she saw with her own eyes that her sister was all right. Accompanied by Demetrius, she hurried into the house and up the stairs to Hester’s room, where she found not only Jane but also Aunt Phillipa and Lady Delilah in attendance.

Hester was awake, but she still looked quite pale and wan. “You were right, Lord Thorverton,” she said. “You told me that someday I would regret every mean-spirited comment I ever made. And I do—I regret each and every one of the nasty things I have said.” Her voice broke, and tears ran down her cheeks.

Meribe hurried over to embrace her.

“I am so ashamed of myself,” Hester sobbed out. “I had no idea Lionell was ... was...”

“Shhh, do not fret yourself,” Meribe said. “Lionell has freely confessed everything before witnesses, and you have been completely exonerated.’’

“Never completely,” Hester insisted, “for it was my complaining about the terms of Father’s will that gave him the idea in the first place.”

“Rudd was clever enough to fool each and every one of us,” Demetrius said firmly, “so there is no reason to expect you to have seen through his act. In addition, no one can possibly hold you responsible for his madness, so let us hear no more of these self-recriminations.”

“But I should not have told him of my dissatisfaction,” Hester said weakly.

“Well, as to that,” Meribe said with a smile, “I defy you to find anyone in all of England who has not complained to someone about something.”

Before she could utter any more words of reassurance, Thomas Hennessey entered the room to report that the vicar had arrived.

“Tell him the wedding has been postponed until the day after Meribe’s birthday.” Demetrius said, and Meribe could almost hear all the jaws dropping around the room.

“After her birthday? But that means—” Hennessey started to protest, but Demetrius cut him off.

“I am quite aware of the significance of a week’s postponement, but I still wish the wedding to take place after Meribe’s birthday.” He looked so fierce when he said it that no one dared to raise an objection.

Meribe remembered his saying that he had enough money of his own that he did not need her father’s, and she was grateful that he was willing to relinquish what could have been her inheritance. Legally, the money could easily be his; morally, however, she also felt that her sister had a greater claim to it, and she felt nothing but respect for Demetrius that he was willing to do what so few men would have done.

Which left Meribe with only one more task, and she dreaded it most of all. Now that the murderer was caught, she knew she was likewise honor-bound to release Demetrius from any obligation to marry her. And despite Lady Anne’s assurances that he truly did want her to be his wife, Meribe thought it more likely that he would not hesitate to accept his freedom when it was offered him.

Meribe looked up at him with eyes that were so troubled, so sad, that Demetrius knew before she even spoke what she was going to tell him.

“I think we should discuss our plans in private,” she said softly.

Discuss. A polite way of putting it. She obviously meant to cancel the wedding rather than merely postpone it. Offering her his arm, he said, “Shall we take a turn around the garden, then?”

Almost shyly she laid her hand on his arm and allowed him to lead her away from the other three women, who were staring at him with such morbid curiosity, he was tempted to pick Meribe up in his arms and carry her off to his own room for their little discussion.

But he was a gentleman, and she was a lady, and he was bound by the strictures of social custom, which insisted it was not proper for a gentleman to be alone in his bedroom with a young lady, even if she was betrothed to him.

Betrothed, yes, but for how long? Until she could jilt him in private?

Propriety be damned, he decided. His entire life was at stake here. Scooping Meribe up in his arms, he strode down the corridor toward his room, ignoring the gasps of dismay that followed him.

Meribe did not shriek, nor did she offer any protests. What she did do was wrap her arms around him and press her face most satisfactorily against his neck. She also trembled in the most delightful way, and looking down at her, he could see that the pulse in her neck was beating at an even faster rate than his own.

Entering his bedroom, he pushed the door shut behind them with his foot. Without putting down his sweet burden, he said, “Now, then, what was it you wished to discuss with me?’’

She continued to hide her face in his neck. “I think ... I think it would be easier to talk with you if you would set me down.’’ Her breath warmed him and sent shivers down his back, all at the same time.

He laughed and hugged her tighter. “Do you know, I am not at all interested in making it easier for you to tell me you are not going to marry me.”

“I gave you my word of honor that I would release you from any obligation to marry me,” she protested softly.

He would have been more worried if he had heard any resolution in her voice, but all he could hear was reluctance to say what she felt obliged to say. It was not going to be at all difficult, he realized, to persuade her that she was being singularly foolish.

Resolutely ignoring the temptation offered by the bed, he crossed to the window and sat down in a comfortable chair, still holding his love on his lap. She made no effort to escape from his arms, which only confirmed his suspicions that she was merely attempting to be noble.

“If you will remember, you made that offer after my brother put the phony announcement of our betrothal in the Morning Post. When my mother canceled that betrothal, she in effect also canceled your promise to release me from any obligation to marry you. But since that time, I have made you an offer in form, and you have promised of your own free will to marry me. Therefore I have no obligation to release you from your commitment to marry me.”