Never a Duke, page 24
The hand was tidy, the seal plain. Would Ned part from her by note? She hoped not.
She slit the seal and read:
Come alone and at once to the Dog and Dam, on the corner of Cuckminster and Chickering, Wapping, if you want to learn what became of your maids.
* * *
Stephen found Ned in his office at the bank, which was where Ned was ever wont to be. His Ned-ship was not wielding the abacus at a speed even Walden envied, nor was he penning policies in that tidy, infernally precise hand he produced so easily.
Ned was staring at a box positioned upon his desk blotter, a pretty cherrywood box that looked to Stephen’s expert eye as if it held no particular puzzles.
No hidden compartments, delicate locks, false bottoms, or double linings—unlike dear Neddy.
“It’s a box,” Stephen said, sauntering over to Ned’s desk. “Boxes are usually employed as containers for sundry items. If I’d known you were so easily fascinated with them I’d have—what’s that note?”
Ned passed him the little missive without comment, which display of meekness should have earned the Morning Gazette’s front-page headline.
Mr. Wentworth,
I have chosen today to remark the miracle of your arrival into the world and your survival of all subsequent perils. Please accept a token of my esteem on this most joyous anniversary.
R.
PS Additional celebratory gestures to follow when next we picnic.
Stephen opened the box. “Did Lady Rosalind confuse you with her companion? This is embroidery thread, if I’m not mistaken. A colorful array, I grant you, and the scissors, hoop, needles, and thimble are artfully displayed, but…embroidery?” The case even held a sizable quizzing glass, tucked along one side.
Stephen set the note atop the thread, for surely Ned would treasure the epistle more than the box itself.
“Is today your natal day, Neddy?”
“Apparently so.”
A nonsensical answer, from a very sensible fellow. “And will the occasion be remarked with another picnic out in Surrey?”
Now Ned speared him with a look. “Did you have us followed?”
“Artie was boasting of his success at the ribbons. To hear him tell it, he beat the sovereign’s record to Brighton. Is somebody following you?”
“Yes. Jane must have had a word with Ivor or Sven, but I was certain I wasn’t followed when I drove out with Lady Rosalind. The Earl of Woodruff might be gathering dirt on me, but I took enough extra turns that I know my picnic at least was private.”
“You have no dirt to gather,” Stephen said. “In my younger days, I pursued the joys of the flesh with dedicated profligacy. You were a Puritan by comparison.”
“Not always,” Ned said softly. “I didn’t learn to open safes by reading the Book of Common Prayer.”
“Neddy, are you preparing to do something noble and blockheaded like returning this lovely box to Lady Rosalind?”
“I should. If I love her, then I want only her happiness. Woodruff will see her transported to Derbyshire if I’m caught skulking about behind the hedges in her vicinity, and that’s bad enough.”
Stephen considered the pretty box, which made no sense to him. Ned was a banker, not a seamstress. “What’s worse than a little ruralizing with the dowagers?”
“Marrying me and seeing every door closed in your face, hearing every rumor become more vile with each telling. Rosalind thinks I’m some sort of gentleman because I can speak the lines and wear the costume, but I am not a gentleman. I am…”
“Yes?”
“I am gallows bait dressed up in banker’s clothing.”
“Then what is Walden? If I recall correctly, he’s the fellow who actually wore the noose.”
“Walden was innocent. I knew that from the first moment I beheld him delivering that freeze-you-to-death stare to the guards. I am not innocent.”
Something distant in Ned’s gaze suggested he wasn’t referring to safecracking or picking pockets. He was referring to some personal version of original sin, and Stephen well knew what that felt like.
“Then tell Lady Rosalind what a scoundrel you are. Lay it all at her dainty feet. Just as she has decided when your birthday is, she can decide if you’re too great a fiend to claim her heart.”
“Duncan said the same thing. Said I should tell her the whole of it.”
“And yet, here you sit, after having consulted the Oracle of Berkshire himself. If you have to call Woodruff out, I will cheerfully serve as your second.”
Ned closed the box. “What would Abigail say about that?”
“She would offer to serve as your other second, and she would make a proper job of it too, Quaker leanings notwithstanding. You belong to us, and we will not let you go into battle alone. Word of a Wentworth.”
That little sermon had come out with just the right amount of condescension and humor, if Stephen did say so himself. To emphasize the point, Stephen scrubbed his knuckles across Ned’s crown, and kissed the top of his head.
“Walden offered to find me a few acres for my own,” Ned said, finger-combing his hair back into order. “A wedding present.”
“A birthday present too, apparently. Neddy, go talk to your lady. She sent you a lovely present and now you are supposed to thank her.”
Ned rose, though he first put the box into the bottom drawer of his desk. “I embroider,” he said, producing a handkerchief awash in bright flowers. “My mother taught me the basics. I like the feel of the fabric and thread. I like the colors. I like threading the needle.…I like the memory of Mama singing to me as I sat beside her by the window and made the most crooked seams with the most uneven stitches.…” He folded his beautiful handkerchief and tucked it into a pocket. “Woodruff thinks I’m illegitimate. I’m not.”
Hidden compartments and double linings, and Ned had apparently handed Lady Rosalind the key to them all.
“What matters legitimate or illegitimate when you’re a Wentworth?” Stephen countered. “Woodruff is a donkey’s arse, and Lady Rosalind would be well shut of him.”
Ned opened another drawer and took out a book bound in red leather. “I have a present for her ladyship.”
“Maybe it’s her birthday too,” Stephen said. “Deliver it in person. If Woodruff sent you packing, her ladyship needs to know you’ll try again.”
Ned went to retrieve his hat and walking stick from the stand by the door. “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done, Stephen?”
“The list of my transgressions is long and impressive.…”
Ned fixed him with a stare not quite in league with a ducal freeze-you-to-death stare, but full of weary forbearance.
“I wasted years blaming myself for saving my own life and the lives of my sisters. Abigail sorted me out, which gives you some idea of the magnitude of the task.”
Ned tapped his hat onto his head. “Jack Wentworth?”
Stephen nodded. “Commended him into the keeping of his Maker, or more likely into hell’s privy. Abigail approved. Emphatically.” Acknowledging the past, even to Ned, required fortitude.
“I approve emphatically too. Your father was a blight upon the species. Wish me luck.”
Ned collected his book and walking stick, and to Stephen the moment seemed to call for more than luck. “If Lady Rosalind turns up her nose at your boyish peccadillos, she’s an idiot.”
“You don’t know the extent of my boyish peccadillos.”
“I don’t need to know, not ever, and you are dithering. Be off with you.”
Ned saluted, propped his walking stick against his shoulder like a soldier on the march, and stalked out.
* * *
“Don’t interfere,” Walden said, letting the curtain drop. “Don’t let Mr. Wentworth see you, don’t put yourself at risk of harm, but keep him in your sight at all times.”
Artie did not need a perishing duke to tell him his job. “On it, guv.”
“That’s Your Grace, Arthur, and Ned’s instincts on the street are uncanny. Be invisible or he’ll spot you before the first intersection.”
“On it, Your Grace,” Artie said, scampering for the door. “I’ll turn sideways and disappear.”
“I mean it, Arthur. Do not put yourself at risk of harm. Your job is to send for help if need be, not to slay dragons.”
Artie waved a hand and slipped out the door. The duke was a good sort, not too high in the instep, not too familiar with them as didn’t deserve his notice. But even Walden should grasp that no child survived on London’s streets without doing in a few pesky dragons from time to time.
Chapter Fifteen
Rosalind had no intention of going anywhere unsafe alone, and she knew only one person whose escort would serve. Ned Wentworth would find a way to accompany her without being seen, or he’d ensure that the Dog and Dam presented no hidden hazards.
A quick consultation with a map in the library showed that establishment to be squarely situated among the venerable and none-too-prosperous environs of Wapping, on the north bank of the Thames. If Rosalind went to the bank first to collect Ned, the journey could take a good two hours on foot.
She changed into her plainest dress, the one reserved for supervising the annual dusting of the attics. She appropriated one of the cloaks kept near the kitchen stairs for the maids and donned a straw hat she reserved for wearing in the garden.
Escape was surprisingly easy. Mrs. Barnstable was at her correspondence, George and Lindy had not yet stirred, and Papa was off to the club. Rosalind tucked a few coins into a pocket, put only her Book of Common Prayer into her reticule, and was soon slipping out the garden gate into the alley.
She was preoccupied with the notion that she really ought to have left Mrs. Barnstable a note, when a man stepped out of the mews. He was a sizable dark-haired specimen, dressed as a groom. She did not recognize him, but he was an attractive fellow with a genial expression, and she thus felt in no danger.
The man raised a hand as if to touch the brim of his cap, and the next thing Rosalind knew, his arm was around her neck and something sharp prodded her in the ribs.
“Not a peep, milady. Not so much as a loud breath, and no harm will come to ye. Make a fuss and ye’ll regret it.”
“I excel at not making a fuss.”
He smelled of horse and ale, and there was nothing friendly about the arm nearly choking her.
“Himself said you was the sensible sort. Now just walk along to the next turning, and get into the coach what’s waiting for us there.”
If I get into that coach, I will never see my home again. That thought was not as disturbing as it should have been. The Earl of Woodruff’s house was a dwelling, a place to sleep and eat and draft letters. More upsetting was the thought that Aunt Ida would wonder what had become of her niece, and most unnerving of all was the thought of Ned Wentworth.
Papa could well blame Ned for Rosalind’s disappearance.
And Ned would blame himself.
That Rosalind could not bear. “Where are we going?”
“Don’t bother your pretty ’ead about that, milady. Just do as yer told and ye’ll live to see the next sunrise.”
Do as you’re told. Rosalind hated those words, but she had only herself to thank for her present dilemma. Her sole comfort came from the realization that kidnapping an earl’s daughter was a far bolder step than snatching a maid from an alley.
The objective was probably to hold her for ransom.
Thus the pertinent question became, could Papa pay a ransom, if he even wanted to?
* * *
A growing sense of urgency hastened Ned’s steps, for Lord Woodruff might well have already bundled Rosalind into a coach and banished her to the shires. Ned did not trust the earl farther than he could toss a cow.
Rosalind would hate being dispatched like a prisoner of war to an obscure parole town, there to be forgotten for years.
Ned dodged down the alleys and cut through the private squares, The Wealth of Nations bumping against his thigh as he leaped fences. If he and Rosalind were to be parted, he at least wanted to wish her farewell and tell her…
Tell her that he loved her? Of course he loved her. Loved her wit and spirit, loved her ability to view life with pragmatism and humor. Loved her passion and her smiles…
But telling her so would serve no purpose.
He dodged through wynds and alleys, taking shortcuts he hadn’t used since boyhood, surprised at how easily he could still navigate London with both speed and stealth.
He soon crossed into the alley that would take him behind Rosalind’s house, only to feel the prickling at his nape that told him his shadow was again on his heels. Whoever tracked him had stayed far enough back to remain undetected, or they were expert at prowling London’s streets.
Ned slowed his pace, fished Mr. Smith’s book from his pocket, and opened it to a random chapter. He sauntered along, leafing through pages as if searching for a particular quote, and then turned into the arched recess of somebody’s garden gate.
Ten seconds later, his shadow sauntered past the gate, a nondescript fellow of indeterminant years. Wiry, not much above average height, and moving with the light balance of a man anticipating an ambush.
Ned stepped silently from the shadows and tapped the fellow on the shoulder. “You fell for the oldest dodge in London, though you’re quiet. I’ll grant you that.”
The man turned slowly, hands up. “I carry no weapons.”
“You don’t need to,” Ned said. “Your fists, your feet, your teeth, your hard head…they are all weapons. Did Woodruff set you to spying on me?”
The fellow lowered his hands slowly. “If you mean the Earl of Woodruff, I’ve never had the pleasure.”
His speech was neither refined nor Cockney, though he had the planed-down leanness of the hardworking class. He looked to be a weathered thirty-five and his complexion suggested he’d spent time in the tropics. His attire was clean enough, though in want of ironing, and his gaze as he studied Ned was neither afraid nor arrogant.
“Who the hell are you?” A Newgate connection? The place had been bursting at the seams with youths and boys, all crammed in with the worst of London’s malefactors.
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that your young lady was taken from this alley not five minutes past. She was bundled into a hackney, a knife at her side unless I miss my guess. The horse in the traces was a piebald, the hackney number 617. Took off in the direction of the Strand, the beast moseying along so as not to attract attention.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
The man’s lips quirked. “You don’t, but if I am being honest, then you are wasting precious time.”
And if the fellow was lying…Something about his attire plucked at Ned’s memory. Something subtle and elusive.
“What were you doing in this alley?”
“I was on my way to fetch you, Ned Wentworth, because Lady Rosalind needs rescuing, and I lack the standing and skills to pull that off.”
This stranger also lacked…furtiveness. He was not afraid of Ned, and he wasn’t trying to intimidate anybody. A tail, possibly, set on him by the duchess or the duke.
Ned touched his hat brim. “We’ll meet again.”
The fellow nodded, and Ned left him in the alley, a puzzle to be solved on another day.
* * *
Rosalind’s first reaction to being abducted had been terror. Reassurances that she’d live to see another day had been little comfort, but the longer she was jostled and bounced along in the malodorous hackney, the more her fear was supplanted by anger.
How many times had Papa seen her tossed into a coach and sent speeding off to a different school? A few months later, Headmistress would toss her into another coach and send her home in disgrace. How many evenings had she climbed into a coach, steeling herself for hours in the company of leering bachelors or nervous widowers?
How many times had Papa summoned her away from Aunt Ida’s, just as Rosalind had resigned herself to a life of rural obscurity?
Men and their damned coaches.
Her abductor hadn’t joined her in the hackney any longer than it had taken to bind her wrists, affix a blindfold over her eyes, and tie what she assumed was a heavily veiled bonnet atop her head. The door had no interior handle that Rosalind could find, the windows did not open. He’d climbed up onto the perch behind, if the rocking of the coach was any indication, and he remained there for the duration of the journey.
London at midday was choked with traffic, and the frequency of the coach’s stops told Rosalind she was being taken across Town, not out into the countryside to the north or west. When the coach door opened, the stink of the river was strong, though Rosalind could not hear water slapping against a pier or dock.
A firm grasp closed around her arm. “Mind your step, milady. Wouldn’t want you to trip.”
“My hat,” Rosalind said, emerging from the coach. “Please don’t leave it in the hackney.” If he’d turn loose of her for even a moment, she might be able to elude him long enough to raise a hue and cry.
“Nice try.” What felt like a shawl was draped over her bound hands, and then the grip on her arm became tighter. “Move along now. We ain’t on the fancy end of Town, so don’t think you’ll be any safer running about on yer own.”
Rosalind could not see, and thus her progress was halting. She was directed across a cobbled lane, then onto an uneven walkway.
“Steps ahead,” her escort said a handful of yards later. “Three, and then you can have a nice sit-ye-down.”
Rosalind managed the steps, then heard a key scraping in a lock. She was ushered into a space that smelled of tallow and gamey bacon, though the place was quiet. No footsteps, no banging doors, no voices.
“In here,” the man said, turning her by the arm. “I’d fetch you a cuppa tea, but you’d probably throw it in me face.”
If the tea was hot enough, Rosalind would have thrown it at his crotch. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now you sit and keep yer gob shut.” The shawl was taken from about her wrists. “Be a good girl, and nobody gets hurt.”
She slit the seal and read:
Come alone and at once to the Dog and Dam, on the corner of Cuckminster and Chickering, Wapping, if you want to learn what became of your maids.
* * *
Stephen found Ned in his office at the bank, which was where Ned was ever wont to be. His Ned-ship was not wielding the abacus at a speed even Walden envied, nor was he penning policies in that tidy, infernally precise hand he produced so easily.
Ned was staring at a box positioned upon his desk blotter, a pretty cherrywood box that looked to Stephen’s expert eye as if it held no particular puzzles.
No hidden compartments, delicate locks, false bottoms, or double linings—unlike dear Neddy.
“It’s a box,” Stephen said, sauntering over to Ned’s desk. “Boxes are usually employed as containers for sundry items. If I’d known you were so easily fascinated with them I’d have—what’s that note?”
Ned passed him the little missive without comment, which display of meekness should have earned the Morning Gazette’s front-page headline.
Mr. Wentworth,
I have chosen today to remark the miracle of your arrival into the world and your survival of all subsequent perils. Please accept a token of my esteem on this most joyous anniversary.
R.
PS Additional celebratory gestures to follow when next we picnic.
Stephen opened the box. “Did Lady Rosalind confuse you with her companion? This is embroidery thread, if I’m not mistaken. A colorful array, I grant you, and the scissors, hoop, needles, and thimble are artfully displayed, but…embroidery?” The case even held a sizable quizzing glass, tucked along one side.
Stephen set the note atop the thread, for surely Ned would treasure the epistle more than the box itself.
“Is today your natal day, Neddy?”
“Apparently so.”
A nonsensical answer, from a very sensible fellow. “And will the occasion be remarked with another picnic out in Surrey?”
Now Ned speared him with a look. “Did you have us followed?”
“Artie was boasting of his success at the ribbons. To hear him tell it, he beat the sovereign’s record to Brighton. Is somebody following you?”
“Yes. Jane must have had a word with Ivor or Sven, but I was certain I wasn’t followed when I drove out with Lady Rosalind. The Earl of Woodruff might be gathering dirt on me, but I took enough extra turns that I know my picnic at least was private.”
“You have no dirt to gather,” Stephen said. “In my younger days, I pursued the joys of the flesh with dedicated profligacy. You were a Puritan by comparison.”
“Not always,” Ned said softly. “I didn’t learn to open safes by reading the Book of Common Prayer.”
“Neddy, are you preparing to do something noble and blockheaded like returning this lovely box to Lady Rosalind?”
“I should. If I love her, then I want only her happiness. Woodruff will see her transported to Derbyshire if I’m caught skulking about behind the hedges in her vicinity, and that’s bad enough.”
Stephen considered the pretty box, which made no sense to him. Ned was a banker, not a seamstress. “What’s worse than a little ruralizing with the dowagers?”
“Marrying me and seeing every door closed in your face, hearing every rumor become more vile with each telling. Rosalind thinks I’m some sort of gentleman because I can speak the lines and wear the costume, but I am not a gentleman. I am…”
“Yes?”
“I am gallows bait dressed up in banker’s clothing.”
“Then what is Walden? If I recall correctly, he’s the fellow who actually wore the noose.”
“Walden was innocent. I knew that from the first moment I beheld him delivering that freeze-you-to-death stare to the guards. I am not innocent.”
Something distant in Ned’s gaze suggested he wasn’t referring to safecracking or picking pockets. He was referring to some personal version of original sin, and Stephen well knew what that felt like.
“Then tell Lady Rosalind what a scoundrel you are. Lay it all at her dainty feet. Just as she has decided when your birthday is, she can decide if you’re too great a fiend to claim her heart.”
“Duncan said the same thing. Said I should tell her the whole of it.”
“And yet, here you sit, after having consulted the Oracle of Berkshire himself. If you have to call Woodruff out, I will cheerfully serve as your second.”
Ned closed the box. “What would Abigail say about that?”
“She would offer to serve as your other second, and she would make a proper job of it too, Quaker leanings notwithstanding. You belong to us, and we will not let you go into battle alone. Word of a Wentworth.”
That little sermon had come out with just the right amount of condescension and humor, if Stephen did say so himself. To emphasize the point, Stephen scrubbed his knuckles across Ned’s crown, and kissed the top of his head.
“Walden offered to find me a few acres for my own,” Ned said, finger-combing his hair back into order. “A wedding present.”
“A birthday present too, apparently. Neddy, go talk to your lady. She sent you a lovely present and now you are supposed to thank her.”
Ned rose, though he first put the box into the bottom drawer of his desk. “I embroider,” he said, producing a handkerchief awash in bright flowers. “My mother taught me the basics. I like the feel of the fabric and thread. I like the colors. I like threading the needle.…I like the memory of Mama singing to me as I sat beside her by the window and made the most crooked seams with the most uneven stitches.…” He folded his beautiful handkerchief and tucked it into a pocket. “Woodruff thinks I’m illegitimate. I’m not.”
Hidden compartments and double linings, and Ned had apparently handed Lady Rosalind the key to them all.
“What matters legitimate or illegitimate when you’re a Wentworth?” Stephen countered. “Woodruff is a donkey’s arse, and Lady Rosalind would be well shut of him.”
Ned opened another drawer and took out a book bound in red leather. “I have a present for her ladyship.”
“Maybe it’s her birthday too,” Stephen said. “Deliver it in person. If Woodruff sent you packing, her ladyship needs to know you’ll try again.”
Ned went to retrieve his hat and walking stick from the stand by the door. “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done, Stephen?”
“The list of my transgressions is long and impressive.…”
Ned fixed him with a stare not quite in league with a ducal freeze-you-to-death stare, but full of weary forbearance.
“I wasted years blaming myself for saving my own life and the lives of my sisters. Abigail sorted me out, which gives you some idea of the magnitude of the task.”
Ned tapped his hat onto his head. “Jack Wentworth?”
Stephen nodded. “Commended him into the keeping of his Maker, or more likely into hell’s privy. Abigail approved. Emphatically.” Acknowledging the past, even to Ned, required fortitude.
“I approve emphatically too. Your father was a blight upon the species. Wish me luck.”
Ned collected his book and walking stick, and to Stephen the moment seemed to call for more than luck. “If Lady Rosalind turns up her nose at your boyish peccadillos, she’s an idiot.”
“You don’t know the extent of my boyish peccadillos.”
“I don’t need to know, not ever, and you are dithering. Be off with you.”
Ned saluted, propped his walking stick against his shoulder like a soldier on the march, and stalked out.
* * *
“Don’t interfere,” Walden said, letting the curtain drop. “Don’t let Mr. Wentworth see you, don’t put yourself at risk of harm, but keep him in your sight at all times.”
Artie did not need a perishing duke to tell him his job. “On it, guv.”
“That’s Your Grace, Arthur, and Ned’s instincts on the street are uncanny. Be invisible or he’ll spot you before the first intersection.”
“On it, Your Grace,” Artie said, scampering for the door. “I’ll turn sideways and disappear.”
“I mean it, Arthur. Do not put yourself at risk of harm. Your job is to send for help if need be, not to slay dragons.”
Artie waved a hand and slipped out the door. The duke was a good sort, not too high in the instep, not too familiar with them as didn’t deserve his notice. But even Walden should grasp that no child survived on London’s streets without doing in a few pesky dragons from time to time.
Chapter Fifteen
Rosalind had no intention of going anywhere unsafe alone, and she knew only one person whose escort would serve. Ned Wentworth would find a way to accompany her without being seen, or he’d ensure that the Dog and Dam presented no hidden hazards.
A quick consultation with a map in the library showed that establishment to be squarely situated among the venerable and none-too-prosperous environs of Wapping, on the north bank of the Thames. If Rosalind went to the bank first to collect Ned, the journey could take a good two hours on foot.
She changed into her plainest dress, the one reserved for supervising the annual dusting of the attics. She appropriated one of the cloaks kept near the kitchen stairs for the maids and donned a straw hat she reserved for wearing in the garden.
Escape was surprisingly easy. Mrs. Barnstable was at her correspondence, George and Lindy had not yet stirred, and Papa was off to the club. Rosalind tucked a few coins into a pocket, put only her Book of Common Prayer into her reticule, and was soon slipping out the garden gate into the alley.
She was preoccupied with the notion that she really ought to have left Mrs. Barnstable a note, when a man stepped out of the mews. He was a sizable dark-haired specimen, dressed as a groom. She did not recognize him, but he was an attractive fellow with a genial expression, and she thus felt in no danger.
The man raised a hand as if to touch the brim of his cap, and the next thing Rosalind knew, his arm was around her neck and something sharp prodded her in the ribs.
“Not a peep, milady. Not so much as a loud breath, and no harm will come to ye. Make a fuss and ye’ll regret it.”
“I excel at not making a fuss.”
He smelled of horse and ale, and there was nothing friendly about the arm nearly choking her.
“Himself said you was the sensible sort. Now just walk along to the next turning, and get into the coach what’s waiting for us there.”
If I get into that coach, I will never see my home again. That thought was not as disturbing as it should have been. The Earl of Woodruff’s house was a dwelling, a place to sleep and eat and draft letters. More upsetting was the thought that Aunt Ida would wonder what had become of her niece, and most unnerving of all was the thought of Ned Wentworth.
Papa could well blame Ned for Rosalind’s disappearance.
And Ned would blame himself.
That Rosalind could not bear. “Where are we going?”
“Don’t bother your pretty ’ead about that, milady. Just do as yer told and ye’ll live to see the next sunrise.”
Do as you’re told. Rosalind hated those words, but she had only herself to thank for her present dilemma. Her sole comfort came from the realization that kidnapping an earl’s daughter was a far bolder step than snatching a maid from an alley.
The objective was probably to hold her for ransom.
Thus the pertinent question became, could Papa pay a ransom, if he even wanted to?
* * *
A growing sense of urgency hastened Ned’s steps, for Lord Woodruff might well have already bundled Rosalind into a coach and banished her to the shires. Ned did not trust the earl farther than he could toss a cow.
Rosalind would hate being dispatched like a prisoner of war to an obscure parole town, there to be forgotten for years.
Ned dodged down the alleys and cut through the private squares, The Wealth of Nations bumping against his thigh as he leaped fences. If he and Rosalind were to be parted, he at least wanted to wish her farewell and tell her…
Tell her that he loved her? Of course he loved her. Loved her wit and spirit, loved her ability to view life with pragmatism and humor. Loved her passion and her smiles…
But telling her so would serve no purpose.
He dodged through wynds and alleys, taking shortcuts he hadn’t used since boyhood, surprised at how easily he could still navigate London with both speed and stealth.
He soon crossed into the alley that would take him behind Rosalind’s house, only to feel the prickling at his nape that told him his shadow was again on his heels. Whoever tracked him had stayed far enough back to remain undetected, or they were expert at prowling London’s streets.
Ned slowed his pace, fished Mr. Smith’s book from his pocket, and opened it to a random chapter. He sauntered along, leafing through pages as if searching for a particular quote, and then turned into the arched recess of somebody’s garden gate.
Ten seconds later, his shadow sauntered past the gate, a nondescript fellow of indeterminant years. Wiry, not much above average height, and moving with the light balance of a man anticipating an ambush.
Ned stepped silently from the shadows and tapped the fellow on the shoulder. “You fell for the oldest dodge in London, though you’re quiet. I’ll grant you that.”
The man turned slowly, hands up. “I carry no weapons.”
“You don’t need to,” Ned said. “Your fists, your feet, your teeth, your hard head…they are all weapons. Did Woodruff set you to spying on me?”
The fellow lowered his hands slowly. “If you mean the Earl of Woodruff, I’ve never had the pleasure.”
His speech was neither refined nor Cockney, though he had the planed-down leanness of the hardworking class. He looked to be a weathered thirty-five and his complexion suggested he’d spent time in the tropics. His attire was clean enough, though in want of ironing, and his gaze as he studied Ned was neither afraid nor arrogant.
“Who the hell are you?” A Newgate connection? The place had been bursting at the seams with youths and boys, all crammed in with the worst of London’s malefactors.
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that your young lady was taken from this alley not five minutes past. She was bundled into a hackney, a knife at her side unless I miss my guess. The horse in the traces was a piebald, the hackney number 617. Took off in the direction of the Strand, the beast moseying along so as not to attract attention.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
The man’s lips quirked. “You don’t, but if I am being honest, then you are wasting precious time.”
And if the fellow was lying…Something about his attire plucked at Ned’s memory. Something subtle and elusive.
“What were you doing in this alley?”
“I was on my way to fetch you, Ned Wentworth, because Lady Rosalind needs rescuing, and I lack the standing and skills to pull that off.”
This stranger also lacked…furtiveness. He was not afraid of Ned, and he wasn’t trying to intimidate anybody. A tail, possibly, set on him by the duchess or the duke.
Ned touched his hat brim. “We’ll meet again.”
The fellow nodded, and Ned left him in the alley, a puzzle to be solved on another day.
* * *
Rosalind’s first reaction to being abducted had been terror. Reassurances that she’d live to see another day had been little comfort, but the longer she was jostled and bounced along in the malodorous hackney, the more her fear was supplanted by anger.
How many times had Papa seen her tossed into a coach and sent speeding off to a different school? A few months later, Headmistress would toss her into another coach and send her home in disgrace. How many evenings had she climbed into a coach, steeling herself for hours in the company of leering bachelors or nervous widowers?
How many times had Papa summoned her away from Aunt Ida’s, just as Rosalind had resigned herself to a life of rural obscurity?
Men and their damned coaches.
Her abductor hadn’t joined her in the hackney any longer than it had taken to bind her wrists, affix a blindfold over her eyes, and tie what she assumed was a heavily veiled bonnet atop her head. The door had no interior handle that Rosalind could find, the windows did not open. He’d climbed up onto the perch behind, if the rocking of the coach was any indication, and he remained there for the duration of the journey.
London at midday was choked with traffic, and the frequency of the coach’s stops told Rosalind she was being taken across Town, not out into the countryside to the north or west. When the coach door opened, the stink of the river was strong, though Rosalind could not hear water slapping against a pier or dock.
A firm grasp closed around her arm. “Mind your step, milady. Wouldn’t want you to trip.”
“My hat,” Rosalind said, emerging from the coach. “Please don’t leave it in the hackney.” If he’d turn loose of her for even a moment, she might be able to elude him long enough to raise a hue and cry.
“Nice try.” What felt like a shawl was draped over her bound hands, and then the grip on her arm became tighter. “Move along now. We ain’t on the fancy end of Town, so don’t think you’ll be any safer running about on yer own.”
Rosalind could not see, and thus her progress was halting. She was directed across a cobbled lane, then onto an uneven walkway.
“Steps ahead,” her escort said a handful of yards later. “Three, and then you can have a nice sit-ye-down.”
Rosalind managed the steps, then heard a key scraping in a lock. She was ushered into a space that smelled of tallow and gamey bacon, though the place was quiet. No footsteps, no banging doors, no voices.
“In here,” the man said, turning her by the arm. “I’d fetch you a cuppa tea, but you’d probably throw it in me face.”
If the tea was hot enough, Rosalind would have thrown it at his crotch. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now you sit and keep yer gob shut.” The shawl was taken from about her wrists. “Be a good girl, and nobody gets hurt.”
