He slipped into the darkness, closing the door behind him. The house was pitch-black and there was no Lucien to guide him. He waited, his heart hammering, his hands wet, until he was steady enough to step down the steep, narrow flight, an arm encircling his burden. He could feel the shape of her, could smell her hair and skin, could feel her breath warm on his neck.
At the foot of the stairs he stepped into the narrow lobby. The side door was slightly ajar, and his heart leaped. He was a second away from success. He stepped through the door and into the alley.
A shrill whistle made him jump. Bur it was Lucien, beckoning from the end of the alley. George set off at a lumbering run, Juliana's head bumping against his back. A hackney stood in the street, Lucien already inside, shivering with cold and wet.
'Goddammit, but I'll get an ague with this night's work.' he complained as George tipped Juliana off his shoulder onto the bench and clambered up after her. 'So you got her.' He examined his wife's unconscious body with an air of mild curiosity. 'What did you do to her? She's not dead, is she?'
George loosened the cloak, tipped back the hood. Juliana's head fell back against the stained leather squabs. Lucien raised his eyebrows at the gag, then leaned over and lightly touched the bruises on her throat, observing casually, 'Dear me, quite rough weren't you, dear boy?'
'I wasn't taking any chances,' George replied, sitting beside Lucien, where he could see his victim as she lolled against the cushions with each jolt of the iron wheels over the cobbles. He smiled and stroked his chin.
Lucien's teeth chattered, and he fumbled for the flask of cognac in his pocket. With a shudder he put the neck to his mouth and tipped the contents down his throat. 'Dear God, but I'm cold.' He drank again, desperate to warm the icy void in his belly. His hands and feet were numb, his fingers blue-white, as if his blood had stopped flowing. He cursed again as his chest heaved and he was convulsed with a violent spasm of coughing.
George had never seen anyone cough with such violence. Lucien grabbed for a handkerchief and held it over his mouth. George saw the white cloth darken with blood. Instinctively, he moved a little away from him along the bench, fearing some contamination. He reached into his pocket for a small vial of smelling salts.
Lucien continued to cough, his hollow eyes blood-streaked with the strain. But he watched through the paroxysms as his companion uncorked the vial, leaned forward, and pushed it beneath Juliana's nose.
'What d'you want to wake her for?' Lucien croaked. 'Wait until we get there, you fool. You don't want her making any trouble.'
'She won't,' George said sullenly, but he sat back again, replacing the vial in his pocket. He wanted to be there when she came to. He wanted to see her eyes open. He wanted to see her realize what had happened to her. He wanted to see her eyes fall upon him and know that she was powerless as she felt the bonds at her wrists and ankles, the gag in her mouth. But he would wait. He turned his head to look out at the black night, and he missed the moment when Juliana's eyes fluttered, opened, then closed again.
Her throat hurt. It was agony to swallow. She couldn't move. She couldn't open her mouth. The faint stinging tang of smelling salts was in her nose. She kept her eyes shut. What had happened? The memory of the terrifying nightmare flooded back. The hands at her throat. George's face, swollen and greasy and triumphant.
No nightmare.
She kept still, trying to work out why she couldn't move; her befuddled brain took what seemed an eternity to conclude that she was gagged and bound.
'We're coming up to the Bell now.'
Lucien's voice. Dear God, she had both of them to contend with. A cold sweat broke out on her back. How could they possibly have spirited her away from the house without someone's knowing? Where was Tarquin' Why hadn't he been there? Tears pricked behind her eyes, and she tried to swallow them. Her throat was agony, but she couldn't bear the idea of tears seeping down her face, into the gag, and she unable to move her hands to wipe them away.
The hackney rattled to a halt. There were noises. Running feet, shouting voices. Light shone on her closed eyelids as she was hauled up and out of the chaise, still swaddled tightly in the cloak. George hoisted her over his shoulder again. She risked opening her eyes and saw that they were in the familiar yard of the Bell of Cheapside. A postchaise stood at the door, horses in the traces, ostlers sheltering from the rain under the eaves of the inn.
She was carried across. George thrust her into the interior of the chaise and slammed the door. 'The lady's sick,' he told the ostlers. 'Sleeping, so don't disturb her. We'll be back in a minute.' To Lucien he said, 'Let's get a bite of supper. I'm wet as a drowned hen, and parched as the desert.'
Lucien glanced at the closed door of the chaise, then shrugged and followed George into the taproom. 'What happens if someone looks in?'
'No one's business but mine,' George growled into a cognac bottle. 'Besides, she's not going to make a sound. She can't move. Who's to look inside?'
It wasn't his business, Lucien reflected, shivering with that bone-deep cold. He'd not been responsible for the abduction. He drank thirstily of the brandy but waved away the meat pie and bread and cheese that George was eating with greedy gusto. He felt ill and knew from experience that the ice in his marrow presaged one of his serious bouts of fever. Perhaps he should take a room there and sweat it out.
But he wanted his thousand guineas, and he wasn't prepared to leave George until he had them firmly in his hand. He understood the man couldn't lay hands on such a sum until he got home; therefore, Lucien would accompany him home. Besides, it might be amusing to see how his wife reacted when she recovered her senses.
Juliana lay in the chaise just as she'd been thrust, half on and half off the seat. She thought she could maneuver herself fully onto the bench, but if she did that, they would know she had moved. Instinctively, she knew that she must maintain her unconsciousness until they reached wherever they were going. At some point they would have to untie her. She was acutely uncomfortable, every muscle twisted and crying out for relief. She tried to take her mind off her discomfort, wondering what the time was. How close to dawn. What time had she been abducted? And where, for pity's sake, were they taking her?
George needed her dead or convicted of murder in order to reclaim her jointure. So which of the two did he have in mind? Neither alternative appealed.
They came back. She could smell cognac as they breathed heavily into the cramped space, thumping down on the bench opposite. Lucien's cough rasped, hacked. She kept her eyes tightly closed when hands moved beneath her legs and lifted her fully onto the seat. She was grateful for the small mercy. A whip cracked, the chaise rattled over the cobbles. Where in the name of pity were they taking her?
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Tarquin stood in the rain, staring in disbelief at the ruined building on Ludgate Hill. It was burned out… had been for months. A roofless, blackened shell. He knew he had the address right. There was no sponging house here.
Lucien had tricked him. Had wanted him out of the house.
He spun on his heel. 'Home!' he snapped to the drenched coachman. 'And be quick about it.' He leaped into the chaise, slamming the door shut as the horses plunged forward under the zealous coachman's whip.
His mind was in a ferment. Whatever reason Lucien had had for luring him away must have to do with Juliana. But what? It was so unlike the impulsively vicious Lucien to plan.
He was out of the carriage almost before it had halted. 'Stay here. I may need you again.'
The coachman nodded miserably and pulled his hat brim farther down.
The night porter opened the door at the duke's vigorous banging. 'Who's been here in my absence?' the duke snapped.
The man looked alarmed, defensive, as if he were being accused of something. 'No one, Your Grace. I've been sittin' 'ere all alone. Not a soul 'as come in or out, I'll swear to it.'
Tarquin didn't respond but raced up the stairs two at a time. He flung open Juliana's door, knowing what he would find and yet praying that he was mistaken.
He stared at the empty bed. There were no signs of a struggle. The armoire door was ajar, the dresser drawers opened, their contents tumbled. He pulled the bell rope again and again until feet came running along the corridor. Catlett pulling on his livery, Henny bleary-eyed, Quentin in his nightshirt, eyes filled with alarm.
“Lady Edgecombe is not in the house,' the duke rasped. 'Henny, find out what's missing from her clothes. Catlett, ask the servants if they heard anything… saw anything unusual in the last two hours.'
Quentin stared stupidly at the empty bed. 'Where would she go on a night like this?'
'Nowhere of her own volition,' Tarquin said bleakly. 'Lucien has a hand in this, but how in God's name did he manage to spirit her out of here? She's stronger than he is. And even if he managed to overpower her, he couldn't possibly carry her down the stairs.'
'Why would he?'
'Why does Lucien ever plot mischief?… Well?' he demanded of Henny, who'd finished her examination of the armoire and dresser.
'Just a heavy cloak, Your Grace, and a pair of stockings,' she said. 'Can't see nothin' else missing.'
'No shoes?'
Henny shook her head. 'Seems like she's gone in nothin' but her shift, sir.'
'George,' said Tarquin softly, almost to himself. 'George Ridge.' He'd miscalculated, grossly misread the man's character. Instead of intimidating him, he'd succeeded in rousing the devil. Lucien would have provided the means to get to her, George the brute force to remove her.
'What are you saying?' asked Quentin, still too shocked to absorb the situation.
'George and Lucien, the devil's partnership,' Tarquin said bitterly. 'God, I've been a fool.' He turned as Catlett hurried in, his livery now neat, his wig straight. 'Well? Anything?'
'No, Your Grace. The household's been abed since before you left. I was up myself for a short while, in my pantry, but I retired soon after your departure.'
Tarquin nodded, tapping his lips with his fingertips as he thought. They all watched him, hanging on every nuance of his expression. 'We have to guess,' he said finally. 'And God help us all if I guess wrong. Henny, pack up a cloak bag for Lady Edgecombe. Basic necessities… her riding habit, boots. You'll know what she needs. Catlett, tell the coachman to bring around my phaeton with the grays harnessed tandem. Quentin, do you accompany me?'
'Of course. I'll dress.' Quentin didn't ask where they were going; he would know soon enough. A night drive in an open phaeton in the pouring rain was not a particularly appealing prospect, but speed was obviously of the essence, and the light vehicle would make much better time than a coach.
Chapter 28
They changed horses three times before dawn. Juliana didn't move, even when a strand of hair tickled her nose and she was sure she was going to sneeze. Lucien coughed and shivered and was generally silent, taking frequent pulls from a cognac flask. George stared fixedly at the bundled figure on the opposite bench.
A gray dawn broke, the sky weeping a thin drizzle. They rattled into the yard of the Red Lion at Winchester, the horses drooping. The coachman had driven them hard, a substantial bonus resting on achieving the seventy miles to Winchester in seven hours. Twice the speed of a stagecoach. George stuck his head through the window.
'Change the horses. We'll not stop for more than that.'
'Flask is empty,' Lucien muttered through clenched teeth. 'Get it filled.' He leaned to open the door and was seized with another paroxysm, doubling over, the reddening handkerchief pressed to his mouth.
'Here, give it to me.' Impatiently, George snatched the flask from his limp grasp. He left the carriage and hurried across the yard to the taproom. 'Fill this, and give me three extra bottles.' At the
