The Kidnapped Bride (29 page)

“Yer right about that.” He took it, blinking in surprise as he hefted its weight and using his teeth and his free hand to open it. Turning it upside down, he gave a chuckle when a small, silver-mounted pistol fell out. “A popgun. Looky here, boss. Flash mort’s goin’ t’ pertect ’erself!” He shook out the rest of the contents, but there was nothing else to interest him, so keeping his gaze mistrustfully upon her ladyship and Nicholas, he bent over, picked up the pistol, and dropped it into his pocket. “Hustle it up there, me lord. Ladies next.”

Sarah watched Nicholas appraisingly as he moved to fasten her hands behind her back. He had himself under tight rein, but his touch was gentle, and he gave her hand a little comforting squeeze before he bound her wrists together and moved on to do the same for his mother. Then, the bandit tied Nicholas and searched his pockets, removing his ring, his watch, and his fobs, as well as his purse. Next went Sarah’s two rings, the only pieces she wore with her mourning, and Lady Packwood’s jewelry and watch. Colin had nothing to interest the men, and the coach, though carefully searched, revealed nothing but the holstered weapon, which they took. The spokesman seemed disappointed but resigned to the meager haul, noting aloud that the jewels at least would bring something. Before he remounted, he scooped up the shotgun that Timmy had dropped when ordered to do so, and the two highwaymen soon disappeared into the trees again.

Timmy jumped down from the box and ran to Nicholas. “Sorry, your lordship!” he said hastily as he untied the thong. “Caught us unawares. My fault, I expect.” He eyed Nicholas uneasily, clearly expecting at least a tongue-lashing, if not more severe punishment for dereliction of duty. But Nicholas smiled briefly and squeezed his shoulder.

“You kept your head, lad. Nothing else you could have done with the pair of them so well-armed. See to Master Colin, if you please.”

Sarah caught Timmy’s look of gratitude and realized suddenly that he, like Dasher and, for that matter, the tenants and most of the other servants, had a very high regard for his master. Despite the outrageously dictatorial manner he took with some people, Nicholas seemed to have a knack for acquiring the respect and admiration of those who served him. She smiled at him.

“Are you all right, Countess?”

“Oh yes, my lord,” she replied, wanting him to believe that she was at least as calm as he was. She thought of all the warnings he had given her and shuddered a little to think that, by defying him, she had risked such a confrontation by herself. “I …” She swallowed, then spoke more firmly, “I’m glad it’s over.”

“I, too,” he muttered. She was free, and he moved to perform the same service for his mother, who had remained strangely silent. She eyed him now accusingly.

“I shall box your ears, Nicholas.”

Dropping his hands from her wrists, he leaned over her shoulder to kiss her cheek. “What’s that you say, madam? I seem to have developed a devilish weakness in my fingers. Hope you don’t mind riding back as you are.”

“Odious boy! Unfasten me at once!”

He chuckled. “You have reared no cloth-head, my lady. I’ve had my ears boxed by you upon other occasions, and I assure you most earnestly that I’ve no desire to repeat the experience.”

She glared at him. “A little resolution, Nicholas, and I should still have my sapphires, Sarah would still have her rings, and you would still have your self-respect!”

He straightened up, moving to face her, and Sarah caught her breath at his expression of mingled pain and anger. “You might even have remained alive long enough to enjoy those baubles, ma’am,” he said roughly, “but I was not willing to risk the alternative. At the very least, had you drawn your little weapon, either Timmy or John Coachman would have been killed, for the most you might have accomplished would have been to wound one of the ruffians before the other let fire. Now, turn around!”

But her ladyship’s temper had evaporated. “You are quite right,” she said slowly. “I might have got us all killed.” Pausing, she gave him a rueful look. “I should not have said what I did, Nicky, in any case. It was temper talking, not your mother.” She smiled contritely. “Perhaps, ’tis my ears that require attention, sir.”

He chucked her under the chin, his good humor restored. “Not from me, madam. ’Twould be more than my life is worth. If you did not retaliate in kind by sheer reflex, I should still have to face Sir Percival.”

“Dear me,” she laughed, “do you think Percy would fly to my defense?”

“I think,” replied her undutiful son, straight-faced, “that he would even leave his dinner to do so … if necessary.”

“No!” breathed her ladyship in mock awe. Sarah and Colin burst into laughter, and even Timmy and the coachman could be heard to chuckle. Nicholas sternly ordered his incorrigible mother to turn around so that he might loose her bonds, and they were soon comfortably on their way again.

“I didn’t even know you still remembered your French, Nicky,” commented Lady Packwood, once they were well underway.

He shrugged. “I’ve kept my hand in the last few years.”

“With Wellington’s forces, I collect.”

He nodded, and Colin spoke up. “We must report this, must we not, Uncle Nick?”

“To be sure, brat. I think I shall visit Sir William Miles as soon as we return. Would you like to ride along with me?”

But surprisingly, Colin declined the offer, and not until after Nicholas had departed again did Sarah discover the reason for it, when the boy presented himself at Dower House and requested private speech with her. “We’ve got to make a plan,” he said earnestly, once they were alone in the drawing room. “After today, Uncle Nick will very likely be stricter than ever about our riding outside the Park. If we are going to discover what our friend Mr. Oakes is up to, we’d better move fast.”

There was something nagging at the back of her mind, tickling her memory. It was the sort of feeling she got when something was wrong or perhaps only when she had forgotten to do something she ought to have done. Although she couldn’t imagine what caused it or think when it had started, it created a certain unease. Nevertheless, she could only agree, for Colin was right. Mr. Oakes was their only lead to Darcy’s killer, and if they were to achieve anything, they must find him before Nicholas cracked down on their riding altogether. If only the Bow Street horse patrols or the Army would move back into the neighborhood. Once the problem of the highwaymen became past history, as it had always done before under such vigilance, they might be able to concentrate properly upon the problem of capturing a murderer!

At Colin’s urging, she changed into her riding habit, pausing only long enough to inspect the progress of the workmen in the kitchen passage. It was obviously going slowly, but the wall of brick was a good deal smaller than it had been before and looked, indeed, as though the job would be finished by dinnertime. Sarah decided that it would probably be better to wait until the following day to tell Colin what she had done. Since the door would swing into the passage, it couldn’t be opened until the last row of bricks was gone, and she was certain the boy would make a nuisance of himself if she told him about it before that. Tomorrow would be soon enough, after the workmen had declared the place safe.

Sarah had a fleeting vision of Nicholas’s probable reaction to their exploration of the Dower House cellars. To do him justice, she was convinced that he believed them unsafe, for she had long since ceased to think of him as, even remotely, having anything to do with Darcy’s death; nevertheless, she was certain he would oppose opening the cellars. She repressed the thought. Compared to the necessity for putting a period to the London gossip, his wishes and anxieties were unimportant.

She rejoined Colin, and they spent the afternoon visiting one tenant farm after another, accompanied by Jem, who followed so carefully upon their heels that Sarah knew he was afraid to lose sight of them for even a moment. Nicholas, she thought with a touch of bitterness, must have torn a proper strip off the poor lad. She had apologized to Jem long since, of course, but he had never told her what had passed between himself and his master after that fateful ride, and she had never dared to ask Nicholas.

They discovered nothing beyond the fact that the farms were all occupied now and were coming into good trim. Several of the farmers had met Mr. Oakes, to be sure, but few showed much, if any, interest in the man, and none had seen him within the last day or so. It was a discouraged pair that Jem escorted back to the Park.

Dusk was fast descending as they neared the huge entry gates. Sarah and Colin were discussing their lack of success and projecting plans for future investigations, when Jem said suddenly, “Company ahead, young master.”

They peered into the gloom and discerned three horsemen riding toward them. It was Colin who recognized them first. “It’s Uncle Nick on the left,” he said then. “But the other two …” He squinted, then his jaw dropped. “By Jove, ma’am, that’s Oakes!”

The others had seen them and reined in some distance ahead, but Sarah could see that Colin was right. Jeremy Oakes and Nicholas spoke briefly to one another; then, Oakes and the other man, whom Sarah did not recognize, rode off toward the common, and Nicholas urged his mount forward. They met him at the gates. Jem conscientiously dropped back a little.

“And where have you two been?”

Sarah and Colin glanced at each other. “Went for a ride, sir,” the boy replied airily. “Needed exercise after all that sitting in the coach, you know.”

“Yet, you turned down a chance to ride with me, did you not?” Nicholas’s tone was gentle, but there lurked an unmistakable note of danger.

Colin, hearing it, looked again at Sarah, then sighed with resignation. “Yes, sir.”

Nicholas frowned but said nothing further until they reached the courtyard. Then, he drew rein. “Jem will take the horses round to the stables,” he said briefly. “I want to see you in the library. Both of you,” he added with a sharp look at the silent Sarah. He swung down and lifted her from her saddle, then stood aside politely to allow them to precede him.

Sarah could tell from Colin’s expression that he was busily racking his brain for an acceptable tale to tell his uncle. Her own mind was occupied, too, as she wondered what his lordship had been doing in such company, but she feared the boy would only succeed in making more trouble for both of them if he concocted some Banbury tale or other for Nicholas’s edification.

Nicholas walked toward the desk where, dropping his riding whip, he proceeded to take off his gloves. “Have you come up with a better reason for your ride, brat?” He dropped the gloves atop the whip and, turning a stern eye upon his nephew, leaned back against the desk, crossing his feet and folding his arms against his broad chest. “Well, Colin? I am waiting.”

“Please, my lord …” But Sarah was waved to silence. She looked helplessly at Colin. He didn’t appear to be particularly distressed; instead, he seemed to be weighing various alternatives. Sarah shook her head meaningly, and he raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Cut line, brat.”

“Tell him, Colin.”

Both commands came at once, but it was to Sarah that the boy looked. “The truth?” He sounded surprised. She nodded while, at the same time, his lordship blandly expressed the opinion that, in his consideration, the truth was unquestionably their wisest option. “Very well,” said Colin with a dubious shrug. Briefly, he outlined their suspicions regarding Mr. Oakes and their conviction that Nicholas would not allow them to pursue their investigations after the morning’s unfortunate incident. “It is absolutely obligatory that we clear Cousin Sarah’s name,” he added fiercely, “so please, Uncle Nick, don’t say we must stop!”

Nicholas had heard him out in silence, and if a brief glint or two of amusement lit his eye during the discourse, they were restrained enough that neither Sarah nor Colin noticed. “I collect that this has been going on for some time, has it not?” There was a pregnant silence. “Since Darcy’s funeral?” he pursued. “I seem to recall, for example, a horse that needed to be reshod. If my memory serves me accurately, Mr. Oakes had been nosing about not long before that.”

“Exactly!” Colin exclaimed. “Don’t you see, Uncle Nick? He’s been behaving suspiciously all along! You must see that he’s the link. If we can get him to open the budget, I daresay we’ll have the killer!”

“What I see,” replied his uncle in measured accents, “is a young gentleman who has been interfering in matters that are none of his concern, who has told falsehoods and practiced deceit to gain his own ends. That sort of shenanigan is going to end right now, sir, or you and I are going to have a confrontation that will make the aftermath of your ghost walk seem like a country dance. Do you follow me, or shall I make matters clearer?”

Paling, Colin nodded. Then, since more of an answer seemed to be required, he lifted his chin and said, “I understand, sir. It won’t happen again.”

“It will be as well for you if it does not,” Nicholas retorted sternly, adding, “I believe we can do without your company for the present. I suggest you retire to your bedchamber, where you might pass the time quite profitably until breakfast by meditating upon your various sins.”

“Yes, sir,” Colin muttered. A moment later, the door had shut behind him, and Sarah turned on Nicholas.

“That was unfair!” she said angrily. “It was not well done of you, my lord, to scold him with me standing right here! He did what he did and said what he said only to protect me!”

“Perhaps he did, Countess,’ Nicholas replied evenly, “but his methods were of a nature that I will not tolerate.”

“They were improper, I suppose!” she stormed, hardly knowing what she was saying, only knowing that, for whatever reason, she was furious with him.

“Indeed they were, as you know very well,” he returned. “Which brings me to the fact that I have a word or two for you as well, madam.”

“Do you, my lord?” Her eyes flashed dangerously. “Do you perhaps intend to send me to bed without supper, too?”

“If you continue to behave this way, my lady, I am far more likely to put you across my knee.”