“What’re you doing there?” Reynaud put his hand on his knife, ready to draw it if need be.
The shadow moved and coalesced into a boy, not more than twelve. “’E said you’d give me a shilling.”
Reynaud looked up and down the street in case the lad was a diversion. “Who did?”
“A toff, same as you.” The boy held out a sealed letter.
Reynaud fished in his pocket and tossed the boy a shilling. The lad scampered off without another word. Reynaud held the letter up. The light was too dim to see much, but he did notice there was no inscription on the outside of the letter. He mounted the steps and went inside, nodding at the yawning footman in the hall. Beatrice was probably abed by now, and he yearned to lie beside her warm softness, but the oddity of the strange missive intrigued him. He went to the sitting room, lit a few candles from the fire, and tore open the letter.
The handwriting inside was scrawling and partially smeared as if sealed in haste:
I won’t be hung.
Bring me the Blanchard jewels. Come alone to my country estate. Tell no one. Be here by the dawn’s first light. If you come after light, if you come with friends, or if you come without the jewels, you’ll find your wife dead.
I have her.
Richard Hasselthorpe
* * *
Reynaud had hardly gotten to the last line when he was running to the sitting room door. “You!” he shouted at the startled footman. “Where is your mistress?”
“My lady hasn’t returned yet this evening.”
But Reynaud was already leaping up the stairs. This thing was impossible. She must be here. Perhaps she’d slipped past the footman. The note was a joke. He reached her bedchamber and flung open the door.
Quick jumped to her feet from a chair by the fireplace. “Oh, my lord, what is it?”
“Is Lady Blanchard here?” he demanded, though he could see the bed was still made and empty.
“I’m sorry, my lord. She went out this afternoon, to visit parliament, and she hasn’t returned.”
Dear God. Reynaud stared down at the letter in his hand. I have her. Hasselthorpe’s country estate was hours away, and the dawn would be coming soon.
THEY’D BEEN TRAVELING for hours. Beatrice stiffened her body, bracing as the carriage lumbered around a corner. She couldn’t use her hands, which had long since fallen asleep because they were bound behind her back, and she was afraid that if she were thrown to the floor, she’d hit her face. She very much doubted that Lord Hasselthorpe would bother to catch her.
She twisted a bit, trying to work her fingers, but it was useless. She felt the pain from where the rope had cut her wrists, but nothing else. She remembered Reynaud telling her how he’d walked for days in the woods of the New World with his hands tied. How had he withstood such torment? The pain must’ve been intense, the fear that he’d lose his hands terrible. She wished now that she could’ve said something when he’d related his experiences, conveyed her sympathy more eloquently.
Told him that she loved him.
She closed her eyes, biting hard on the cloth gag stuffed in her mouth. She would not let this dreadful man see her fear, but she wished—oh, how she wished!—that she’d been able to tell Reynaud that she loved him. She wasn’t sure why she needed to tell him. He might not even care—probably wouldn’t care. He’d shown her affection and passion, but nothing more, nothing that could be called love. Perhaps he no longer had the ability to feel romantic love. It seemed to her that in order to feel true and lasting love, once-in-a-lifetime-if-one-were-lucky real love, one must be prepared to let oneself fall. To give oneself up utterly to the other person if need be. She knew that she could do just that, but Reynaud would not let himself love.
And still it didn’t seem to matter. Beatrice had discovered that one’s love needn’t be reciprocated in order for it to thrive. It seemed her love was perfectly happy to grow and even bloom in the complete absence of his. There was no controlling it.
The carriage jolted, and Beatrice wasn’t quite quick enough to brace herself entirely. Her shoulder hit the side painfully.
“Ah,” said Lord Hasselthorpe. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours. “We’re here.”
Beatrice craned her neck, trying to see out the window, but what she could see was mostly black. They rounded a curve, and she braced her feet against the floorboards.
And then the carriage stopped.
The door was opened by a footman, and Beatrice tried to catch the man’s eye to perhaps gain his sympathy. But he kept his gaze fixed downward, save for one darted glance at Lord Hasselthorpe. There would be no help from that quarter.
“Come, my lady,” Lord Hasselthorpe said rather nastily, and yanked her to her feet.
He pushed her ahead of him, out of the carriage, and for a moment she feared she’d fall headlong down the steps. The footman caught her arm to steady her, though he just as hastily let her go. Beatrice looked at him again and saw a faint frown between his brows. Perhaps there was hope of help from him after all.
But she hadn’t time to consider the matter further, for Lord Hasselthorpe was marching her toward a great mansion. Even in the dark she could see it was a huge building with but one light in one of the lower windows. As they neared the front doors, one was flung open and an ancient manservant stood to the side, holding a candelabra that looked too heavy for his thin wrist.
“My lord.” He bowed his head, his expression serene enough to make Beatrice wonder if Lord Hasselthorpe often brought bound-and-gagged ladies to his doorstep.
Her captor made no acknowledgment of the butler but dragged her up the steps and into the hall.
It was only after they’d passed the old manservant that the man cleared his throat and said, “Her ladyship is in residence, my lord.”
Lord Hasselthorpe stopped so suddenly that Beatrice stumbled over her own feet. He absently held her up as he glared at the butler. “What?”
The old man appeared unperturbed at his master’s ire. “Lady Hasselthorpe arrived yesterday evening and is even now upstairs asleep.”
Lord Hasselthorpe scowled at the ceiling as if he could see his wife in bed several floors above. Obviously his wife’s presence at his country estate was a surprise. Beatrice’s heart leaped a little in cautious optimism. Lady Hasselthorpe was not known for her intelligence, but surely she’d protest her husband bringing home kidnapped countesses?
If Lady Hasselthorpe was ever allowed to see her, that is. For now Lord Hasselthorpe was trotting her quickly toward the back of the house. He turned down a dark passage so narrow that he had to push her ahead of himself, for they would not fit abreast. This ended in a steep flight of stairs that spiraled downward into the depths of the mansion. Beatrice felt sweat start at the small of her back as she descended. The steps were bare stone, well worn and slippery. A fall here might break her neck. Was that what Lord Hasselthorpe intended? Would he kill her out of some strange revenge for Reynaud’s win on the parliament floor? But then why bring her all the way to his country estate merely to murder her? Surely that made no sense.