The Resolute Runaway Read online

  “What shall you do?” Joanna asked. “How shall you find her?”

  He could not admit that he had not the slightest idea where to begin. Joanna appeared to think he could do anything, and he would not allow himself to disappoint her—to disillusion her.

  Forcing his tired brain to function, he said firmly, “First of all, we must keep the news of her disappearance from spreading all over town. We shall tell everyone that Dorie is sick—’broken out in spots’ might be most effective in discouraging would-be visitors—and we can pretend she is merely keeping to her room. We must, of course, enlist the aid of some of the servants, but as few as possible, and only those we know for sure can keep their tongues quiet. And under no circumstances do we dare let my aunt know.”

  “But Dorie is her daughter—”

  “And my aunt couldn’t keep a secret if her life—or in this case, her daughter’s reputation—depended on it. We shall have to tell Miss Hepden, of course, and that way she can be the one to bring Dorie trays of food in her room. And I know a doctor who will help us. He served with our regiment in Spain until he was wounded in the arm. If need be, he can issue an order that Dorie’s illness is not serious but that it is highly contagious, requiring her room to be quarantined.”

  “Keeping her disappearance a secret is all very well,” Joanna pointed out quite unnecessarily, “but none of this will help us actually find Dorie, and that is the most important thing.”

  Putting on a show of confidence, Nicholas said, “Glengarry and I will find her, never fear. And we can let Billy in on the secret too. He is more familiar with Dorie’s tricks than the rest of us, so he may have some ideas of where she might have gone.”

  Tears welled up in Joanna’s eyes, and once again Nicholas had to restrain himself from taking her in his arms. “But it has been hours—anything might have happened to her. Oh, dear, it is all my fault.”

  Covering her face with her hands, she began to sob, and Nicholas balled his hands into fists, fighting the impulse to take her into his arms. If only she would allow him to hold her—to comfort her if nothing else.

  “It is not your fault. That is nonsense.”

  “I tried and tried to tell her that adventures are not always fun—that they can be dangerous. I tried to make her understand how horrible it is when one is all alone—with no money, no friends, no one to turn to...”

  Her voice broke, and Nicholas was unable to control himself any longer. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close. To his relief, she did not try to resist—to pull away—but actually clung to him while she cried.

  “It is not your fault,” he repeated. “We have all tried to make Dorie pay attention, but she has always been an obstinate child who had to learn everything by her own experience. It was never enough to tell her that roses have thorns—she had to prick her own fingers before she believed. So you must not blame yourself. It is not anyone’s fault.”

  Except maybe the man, whoever he was. There had to be a man involved in this escapade somehow. Dorie had said in her note that she would be home before dawn, and from the tone of her words, she had meant to be. So someone had to have prevented her. But who? And how? And where?

  The why was not that hard to figure out. Dorie would come into a considerable inheritance on her twenty-first birthday. Not really an astounding amount, but definitely enough to interest a gazetted fortune-hunter.

  “If you wish to assign blame, I probably deserve the lion’s share,” Nicholas said ruefully.

  Joanna lifted her head from his chest and looked up at him. “You?”

  “Yes, me. I foolishly gave her a list of men she was to avoid. I should have realized what a challenge that would be for her.”

  “But surely she would not ...”

  “Surely she would. She has undoubtedly made an assignation with one of the men on that list, so all we have to do is determine which one.” Putting his arm around Joanna’s shoulders, he started leading her toward the back of the house. “So now we must begin. You will please go up and wake Miss Hepden, and I shall go around to the stables and rouse Billy. Let us meet in the library to discuss our plans, so that by the time the rest of the servants are awake, we shall have our conspiracy well organized.”

  * * * *

  “Good morning, my lord.”

  Alexander opened one eye and glared balefully at his valet, who had pulled back the draperies, letting in the early-morning sunshine, and who was now cheerfully sorting through Alexander’s wardrobe.

  “Might I suggest your new blue superfine jacket? With perhaps the rose waistcoat?”

  May the saints deliver him from fools and English valets, thought Alexander, wishing he could close his ears as easily as his eyes. He had not slept well, which made the “ministrations” of Duxell all the harder to endure.

  Having dressed himself for all of his twenty-six years—or at least since he was a very small lad—Alexander had objected when his uncle had insisted upon providing him with a properly trained valet. His objections had, of course, been overruled. Uncle Willard was determined to have everything precisely correct for his nephew’s visit to London.

  Uncle Willard rose punctually at eight every morning, no matter what the circumstances, ergo all proper gentlemen should rise at eight, even if the gentleman in question had only fallen into bed at five. Despite Alexander’s efforts when he first arrived in London, the servants had all—man, woman, and boy—relentlessly forced him to adjust his schedule to the one prevailing in the Craigmont household.

  “Mr. Craigmont has suggested you might wish to accompany him to Lock’s this morning, as he is thinking of purchasing a new hat.” The valet continued to chatter, even though Alexander remained mute. It was deliberate, Alexander knew, and unfortunately also effective.

  Unable to go back to sleep, Alexander finally dragged himself out of bed and allowed the valet to shave him and dress him. Descending to the breakfast room, he found his uncle before him. Laying down his newspaper, his uncle made a great show of taking out his pocket watch and looking at it. Then, with firmly compressed lips, he snapped it shut and returned it to his waistcoat pocket, in effect telling Alexander without words that he was a bad boy for being all of ten minutes late.

  Such a to-do over nothing, Alexander thought, suppressing a smile. He could sympathize with Miss Donnithorne, who, according to Nicholas, was still struggling against the rules and restrictions young ladies had to adhere to.

  But he could not feel too much pity for her, since it was she who had invaded his dreams and disturbed his sleep. Dragging her away from the cockfight had cured him of being tongue-tied in her presence. Whether or not he had also gotten over being clumsy, he could not determine, since she had point-blank refused to dance with him after that night.

  Morosely he stirred his cup of tea and stared down at the plate of boring English food the footman had put before him. She was also destroying his appetite. A few more weeks of not sleeping and not eating, and he would be as puny as an Englishman.

  There was a loud commotion in the hallway, such a total departure from the normal routine that his uncle spilled half his tea on his paper. Then suddenly the door to the breakfast room was thrown open and a small boy of twelve or thirteen years burst into the room, followed by the butler and two footmen.

  Yelling at the top of his lungs, the boy raced madly around the room with the servants in hot pursuit. Then, rolling his eyes wildly, the child grabbed Alexander’s arm and hung on like a barnacle.

  The servants were vociferous but ineffectual in their attempts to remove the lad, until finally Uncle Willard, who looked positively apoplectic at this blatant disruption of his precious schedule, bellowed out, “What is the meaning of this outrage?”

  The room instantly became quiet, and Hickins, the butler, began to explain. “Please excuse us, sir, but the boy here was told quite specifically he would have to wait until after his lordship had breakfasted before he could be granted an audience with his lordship, if it
please you, sir. But he, as you can see, sir ...”the butler continued explaining in an apologetic voice, but Alexander had ceased to listen.

  There was only one member of the peerage in the room, which meant that the boy, whoever he was and wherever he had come from, had come to see him, Alexander.

  “You wanted to see me?” he inquired in a low voice.

  “If you are Lord Glengarry, then I has been trying since the middle of the night to get word to you, but they wouldn’t let me into the house, no matter how I banged on the door. Said I was to cease my racket, else they’d call the constable and have me thrown in jail.”

  The butler threw the boy a darkling look, but continued talking rapidly to Alexander’s uncle, explaining how everything was the boy’s fault—none of the servants were guilty of the slightest breach of etiquette.

  “Then, this morning, they finally was willing to let me in, but first the valet said I had to wait until you were properly dressed, and then the butler said not until after you had eaten—I tell you, m’lord, I think it proper foolish to waste so much time when every minutes counts. I’m ‘bout ready to say the devil take the lot of you—if you don’t want to hear my message, then I’ll just keep mum.”

  Grabbing the boy by the arm, Alexander convinced him with one fierce scowl that even thinking about refusing to deliver the message was a dangerous piece of folly.

  “He said his name was Billy, m’lord, and he gave me half a crown and said I was to find you and tell you that the Earl of Blackstone was abducting Miss Dorie and carrying her off to Scotland. I work at the Green Man in Barnet, and at first I thought he was trying to tip me the double, but he showed me the lady in the lord’s carriage—drugged, she was—and told me I was to hurry and fetch you. Well, I tried, m’lord.” He glared accusingly around the room, which had now grown amazingly quiet. “I hurried as best I could, but some people here just wouldn’t listen.”

  The butler now made the fatal mistake of trying to excuse himself to Alexander, who for the first time since his arrival in London allowed his Highland heritage to surface. With the same wild, bloodcurdling yell his ancestors had used when they charged naked into battle against the encroaching English, he grabbed the butler by the throat and hoisted him off the ground.

  The man’s eyes bulged out, and he seemed for the first time properly aware of his own culpability.

  “Do you know what we do in the Highlands with traitors who aid and abet the enemy?” Alexander spoke in a low voice, which held a wealth of scorn.

  Unfortunately, the butler was doomed to remain in ignorance, because at that moment the door opened again, this time to admit Alexander’s aunt.

  “What is all this commotion about?” she asked. Clearly annoyed at seeing Alexander holding the butler several inches off the ground, she said, “For heaven’s sake, Alexander, put the poor man down this instant. Can’t you see he is turning blue?”

  She sounded so much like his mother, who used to scold him in just the same way, that Alexander obeyed. The butler staggered backward, into the arms of the two footmen. “Boo!” Alexander barked out, and the three servants turned tail and ran from the room.

  He delayed only long enough to explain to his aunt that the woman he loved had been abducted, that he was going in pursuit, that no, he was not taking along his valet or any other English servant, and that no, he was not going to waste time packing all his London clothes, and no, he would not be returning to England after he rescued his love.

  “Unless,” he added in his most threatening voice, “one word of this event leaks out and the slightest hint of scandal attaches itself to Miss Donnithorne’s name, in which case I will return and take a Highlander’s revenge against everyone not related to me by blood.”

  He was glaring directly at his uncle when he spoke, and for once his uncle had nothing to say about the proper way for a London gentleman to act.

  With one last kiss for his aunt and one last curse for his uncle’s servants, Alexander hurried out to the stables. He was just finishing hitching his team to his phaeton when his aunt appeared, dragging behind her the portmanteau he had brought from Scotland with him.

  “I cannot think you will wish to be without a change of linen for the whole journey,” she said. “So I have packed some of your clothes for you. And I put in your uncle’s pair of dueling pistols. I doubt he will ever challenge anyone to meet him at dawn, whereas you may find them useful. And I shall speak to the servants myself, so you need have no worries about gossip.”

  Smiling down at her, he gave her another hug. “You are so like my mother, I cannot think how you married such a stuffy old man.”

  “Well,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “he was not an old man when I married him.”

  “But stuffy?”

  “Let us say a bit set in his ways even then,” she replied. “Oh, my dear, I do hope you find the girl in time—before that wretched villain forces her to marry him.”

  “It matters little. I shall marry her in the end, even if I have to make her a widow first. That being the case, you may do me an additional favor if you would, and send the announcement to the paper so as to forestall any gossip.” He did some rapid calculations of distances and times, then said, “Arrange to have it appear the day after tomorrow.” Quickly he told her what the wording should be. “Even if I am delayed a day or two, it will not matter, because no one in London is likely to discover the discrepancy.”

  But it did matter, and Blackstone would pay for Miss Donnithorne’s pain—for every minute she suffered grief or anguish, the wicked earl would pay double, even triple. With his life, if necessary, Alexander vowed. The English lord would come to rue the day he had dared trifle with a Scotsman’s chosen lady.

  Chapter 13

  Joanna had been right, Dorie was forced to admit. Being abducted was not the least bit comfortable. Too weak from the drugs to sit up for long, she was again lying down across the forward seat, facing the wicked earl, who was sprawled opposite her, looking perfectly at ease. She shut her eyes, not only because she was tired of seeing the satisfaction on Blackstone’s face but also because it was easier to control her nausea that way.

  Nicholas had also been right—there were certain men it was better for young ladies to avoid. Not because they were exciting, but because they were heartless, despicable, dishonorable, and ... dangerous.

  How could she have been so stupid? Why had she not been able to see behind Blackstone’s conceit to his wickedness? Why had she been so eager to deceive her cousin that she had not been wary of being duped herself?

  The only answer she could think of was that she was an idiot, a fool, a witless wonder—

  “Your cousin does not appear to be coming after you.” Blackstone virtually purred with satisfaction. “Can it be that you have written him a note directing his attentions toward Vauxhall Gardens? Do you suppose, my little turtledove, that he wasted all those hours of darkness trying to discover which dominoed and masked lady might be you?”

  Was she so easy to read? Were her actions so easy to predict? How could Blackstone have anticipated that she would do something so rash as leaving a note?

  The answer to that question did nothing to bolster her low spirits. Apparently he had taken her measure when she had immediately, without the slightest demur, fallen in with his suggestion to attend the masquerade. He had not only seen that she was a fool, but a gullible fool—someone it would be child’s play to manipulate.

  “Assuming you did leave word of your intentions, that will mean it should take your cousin six or seven hours to realize my intentions are quite different, which will serve to put him a good six or seven hours behind us. I misdoubt he will be able to make up those hours easily, assuming he is even clever enough to discover the truth. But then, why would it even occur to him that I had abducted you? No one but the two of us even knows we have ever met.”

  Dorie’s head still hurt, but the nausea was passing, and now she was beginning to feel hungry. She also
had the most childish urge to whine and stamp her foot and demand he release her. But into her mind came the image of a very large Scotsman. Oh, if only he would—

  As if he had read her mind, Blackstone continued taunting her in his nasty, silky-smooth voice. “There is, of course, your other watchdog, that hulking Scotsman who has been following you around like a tame puppy. He was quick enough to remove you from the cockfight.”

  Dorie stifled a groan—did this man know the full extent of her folly?

  “But then, I have noted he has been conspicuous in his absence from your side for the last few days. Have you perhaps been so adamant in refusing to have anything to do with him that he has decided to let you sulk a while before he resumes his unproductive courtship? He would have been better served to have taken a page out of my book and simply carried you off whether you were willing or not.”

  Dorie missed her large Scotsman so much she wanted to cry. Why had she thought she was invincible? More to the point, why had she thought life was all a game in which everyone followed the same rules?

  “I’m hungry,” she said crossly. “The least you can do is feed me. Or do you plan to starve me into submission?”

  “I have no need to starve you,” Blackstone replied. “And when I decide it is time for you to submit, then you will.

  “You see, my sweet Dorinda, I am not only more clever than you, but far, far stronger, and I will not balk at causing you pain. I have never had any compunctions about using my strength against those who are weaker than I.”

  Dorie carefully kept all emotion off her face, but she had come up with an idea—a delaying tactic, no more, and of marginal effectiveness, but nevertheless a small thing she could do to circumvent the earl’s plans.

  She would dawdle over her meal, drag out every bite, and for every minute she delayed their journey, Nicholas would be one minute closer to catching up with them.