A Worthy Wife (26 page)

Now they had to wait for word, which was harder than scouring the countryside. At least then they’d been doing something, anything. Now Kenyon was pacing. Nialla was weeping into Kit’s handkerchief while he sat, exhausted after his ride. Brianne and Wesley were warming themselves with the aged bottle of brandy they’d unearthed from the wine cellar, and Aunt Thisbe was joining in, to settle her nerves, while Uncle Ptolemy was stroking a lizard. Aurora did not drink, did not pace, and did not find petting an amphibian at all soothing. She was sewing a shirt for Andrew to wear when he got back. She’d only stitched the lawn fabric to her own skirts once, and jabbed the needle into her finger three times, she was that calm.

Aunt Ellenette came downstairs to see what the new
commotion was about and started wailing about Gypsies carrying the boy off. They’d be stealing Frederick next!

“We’d never be so lucky,” Kenyon muttered under his breath, but reminded his aunt that the carriage was an elegant equipage, not a Gypsy caravan. “Besides, I know all the Gypsy families who camp near Windrush. They are decent people who have traveled this way for years. They might borrow a chicken or two, but they would never jeopardize their welcome.” He was desperate, so asked, “Does Frederick have any thoughts on the matter?”

Frederick thought he’d like to sample the spirits, but he’d settle for the salamander. Uncle Ptolemy tapped the pug on its flattened nose, which had Aunt Ellenette up in the boughs, then up in her room, with the dog. Kenyon nodded his appreciation to the older man and resumed his pacing.

“Do you think Lord Phelan could be behind Andrew’s disappearance?” Aurora asked when no one seemed to have a better idea, white slavery and chimney sweeps not being better ideas, to her thinking.

“What good would my son be to Ramsey?” Kenyon replied. “And he has to know I would spend the rest of my life tracking him down if he harms the lad. No, I cannot see Lord Phelan committing a crime so likely to get himself killed.”

“Do you think Andrew is being held for ransom?”

He shrugged. “Where is the demand for payment, then?”

“Besides, a kidnapping is usually planned,” Wesley added, leading Kenyon, at least, to speculate on how Royce knew such a fact. “No one could have counted on Andrew running off on his own, or what direction he’d take, to have a carriage ready to hand. This smacks of someone already in the vicinity snatching a golden opportunity when it ran past. Do you have other enemies, my lord, who might seek revenge?” Wesley sounded positive the glowering earl must have a few.

“No one who does not fear me more than hate me—with just cause. I will not tolerate having my family threatened. I would suspect that mawworm Podell, but
he is too much the coward. And he prefers to victimize women, not children. No, I have no idea who would have done such a thing, but he will pay, you can be assured.”

“You’ll pay him to get Andrew back, though, won’t you, if it is, indeed, a plot to
extort money from you?” Aurora had a dread of her furious, impetuous husband exacting retribution instead of paying the ransom.

“What, do you fear I’ll tell him to keep the boy if the price is too high?”

“No, I fear you’ll throttle him before he tells where he’s taken Andrew.” Aurora had to cut apart the two sleeves of Andrew’s shirt that she’d just sewn together.

“I do not let my emotions overrule my reason, madam wife,” he replied, which had Brianne scoffing and Aurora raising her brows. “Well, this afternoon was different. I had good cause to be upset, dash it.” He went back to his pacing. Aurora sewed the sleeves in upside down.

Christopher could barely stay awake, so Kenyon sent him up to bed, in case he was needed fresh in the morning. If they had no word by then, Kenyon intended to deploy riders in every direction, asking after the dark coach with chestnut horses. Brianne challenged Wesley to a round of billiards in the game room rather than sit watching her brother wear out the carpets. Nialla went to check on her cat, and, making Aurora promise to call them if there was news, the McPhees also retired, since they had been up since daybreak, counting croaking frogs. The earl would not heed Aurora’s advice that he seek his bed, despite his bone-weariness. He’d never sleep, anyway. “But you should rest, my dear, for you’ve been exhausting yourself for weeks, it seems, with your nursing.”

Every dread possibility was waiting for her upstairs, like monsters under the bed. Aurora knew her imagination would haunt her, picturing Andrew’s fear in vivid, glaring colors. But Windham would not let anything happen to his son, she kept telling herself. Kenyon was strength and safety, so she needed to be near him. “No, I’d rather stay here with you.”

He came and knelt in front of her, taking the mangled shirt out of her clasp. He brought both of her hands to his lips. “We’ll get him back, I swear it.”

*

The note came long after midnight. A boy from the village livery stable brought it, but he said a stranger had paid him to deliver it, then rode off. Kenyon tore the page open with his bandaged hand, swearing.

“Is it from Judith’s husband?” Aurora wanted to know. “Did he say where they were? Or what direction they were heading?”

“No, it’s from the kidnappers.”

Aurora was relieved that this was a matter of greed, not vengeance. Extortionists would never harm the boy, not if they wanted to see their money. “How much do they want? And where can we get it this time of night?”

“They don’t mention money, just that we need to talk. The note says to be at the Jolly Cricket in Kings Lynn, on The Wash in Norfolk. They must think they are far enough ahead of any pursuit that we cannot overtake them before they reach the harbor.”

“Sounds like they are headed out to sea as soon as the business is completed.” Back from the billiards room, Wesley thought they’d be wise to do so, from the look on Windham’s face.

Brianne was outraged. “Unless they think to take the money and the boy both! They could sail anywhere, and we’d never find them.”

Windham handed the note to Aurora. “No, I’m sure they’d only be taking Andrew to France.”

Brianne and Wesley stared at him as if he’d become as queer in the attics as Aunt Ellenette. “How in the world have you come to that conclusion?” Brianne demanded.

“Because the note says
‘Il
faut que nous porlions.’
That’s ‘We need to speak,’ in case you’ve forgotten all those lessons at your expensive finishing school. Where else would Frenchmen run to? Not that that will save them, of course. And Norfolk is still a long way from Paris.”

Aurora was studying the message as though another
reading would offer up more information than the two lines contained. “But what would a Frenchman want with Andrew, if not money for his return?”

“If today was an example of your skills at diplomacy, brother, perhaps you made enemies across the sea, too.” Still holding her cue stick; Brianne stabbed at the carpet with it. “I never could believe you were part of the peace negotiations committee.”

Kenyon ignored her, except to tell her to straighten her gown. Wesley took the stick out of her hands before she attacked the knickknacks on the mantel. “I’ll wager it’s Genevieve’s family, then,” Brianne said. “They never liked her marrying an Englishman, and might have blamed you that she ran off with the duke and died in France. Though what you could have done to stop her I cannot imagine.”

Aurora was hopeful. Genevieve’s family would never hurt their own flesh and blood. “Perhaps they only want Andrew to go back to France with them for a while, to see his mother’s homeland?”

Kenyon shook his head. “They are all dead, the ones who did not settle in England. Only an aunt and a cousin or two remain, that I know of. They could visit Andrew anytime they want. I’ve told them so many times, sending on his schools’ addresses, not that any of them ever has. And they don’t need money.”

“Who else could have an interest in Andrew?” Aurora asked the question they were all wondering.

“It might turn out to have nothing to do with the boy at all, except as a bargaining tool. Someone wants something from me, that is all I know.” They followed him to the book room, where Kenyon fumbled to open the safe with his bandaged hand. Wesley offered to help, but received such a foul look that Brianne took offense.

The earl withdrew a pouch filled with money, even though the kidnappers had not mentioned a price. “Dash it, this is not enough. Who knows where I’ll end up or how soon I can get a draft on my bank?”

Aurora gasped. “I knew I shouldn’t have spent so much on the banana trees!”

“Banana trees?” Kenyon paused in his counting. “No,
don’t tell me. But don’t be absurd. None of this is your fault.” He stuffed the money in his inner pocket, then withdrew the velvet pouch containing the Windham diamonds from the safe into another pocket.

Brianne’s protests turned to a whimper when Wesley pinched her. She shrugged, remembering that she wouldn’t be wearing the necklace again, anyway.

Finally, before closing the safe, Kenyon took out his Mantons.

Aurora watched him clean and load the pistols. “I am going, you know.”

He didn’t even argue, but warned that he intended to sleep in the coach, driving through the night, stopping only when the horses needed changing. Aurora nodded. She would not have it any other way. Wesley volunteered to start out cross-country on horseback to see if he could intercept the coach before it reached the coast. It was a long shot, even if Judith’s husband had left messages along the way, but worth the try. And no, Wesley would not let Brianne ride along, no matter how bruising a rider she was. She could not keep up with Thundering Avenger, to say nothing of what would happen to her reputation if she was alone on the roads with him for days and nights.

Considering the disarranged state of her clothing after a simple billiards match, Kenyon thought it was surprisingly thoughtful of the cad to be worried over Brianne’s good name.

Brianne agreed to stay behind and relay messages, especially if any further communication arrived. They did not wake the others since there was nothing anyone else could do, but hurried to pack. Aurora threw a few things in a valise, a change of clothing and her nightrail, her toiletry items and her Bible. Then she packed for Andrew: clean clothes, his favorite book, and some of the willowbark fever medicine, just in case. She also packed a hamper of food so they would not have to delay at the coaching stops longer than it took to put fresh cattle in the traces.

Kenyon also packed: a knife, a rifle, and a small ivory-handled pistol that fit in the pocket of his waistcoat.

Wesley’s horse was out front, stamping on the ground while Royce made his farewells, which seemed to necessitate disarranging Kenyon’s sister some more. Lord Windham decided it was a good thing the dastard was riding out; otherwise he’d have to lock the blighter up, the way he did Frederick after the pug expressed his frustrated affection for Royce’s dog on the vicar’s leg.

Then they were off, with two coachmen to share the driving. Mere minutes had passed, though it seemed like hours. And it seemed like days since either Aurora and Kenyon had slept. Both drowsed in the coach. Rousing briefly when the carriage wheel hit a bump, Kenyon saw how Aurora’s head was bent at an angle guaranteed to give her a sore neck. He pulled her over to his side of the carriage, half onto his lap, then tucked the carriage blanket around both of them. He could smell the rose-water in her hair and know her softness, even through their layers of clothes.

Settling against his chest Aurora could feel Kenyon’s heartbeat, the steady power of this man. She knew he’d get Andrew back. “I love you, Lord Windham,” she whispered when she thought he’d fallen asleep again.

“I love you, too, Lady Windham,” he whispered back, before starting to snore.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Aurora was his anchor. Without her by his side, Kenyon would have run aground, or amok. On the other hand, of course, he would not be in this fix if she had not meddled. Neither would he have known his son. Now she believed he could find Andrew and bring him to safety; therefore, he could.

Wesley Royce met up with their carriage before they reached the rendezvous spot. He’d never encountered Judith’s singular soldier on the road, but he had located the abductors, although not in time to halt their coach outside of town, not without jeopardizing Andrew. Once they’d arrived at their destination, right where they said they’d be waiting, three middle-aged men with French accents had taken a private parlor at the inn, as bold as brass and dragging a reluctant Andrew between them. There were two older men in worn but expensive clothing, and another, a long-haired servant who had an ominous bulge in his pocket. Not wishing to be seen, Wesley had stayed outside, but, according to the innkeeper, the oldest of the men had signed the register as R. DuBois. Both Wesley and Aurora looked expectantly toward Kenyon, hoping he’d be able to explain, but the earl knew no one by that name, not that criminals who stole children were wont to use their real identities.

The innkeeper had also mentioned to Wesley, for a price, that Monsieur DuBois was taking his orphaned nephew back to France, now that the war was over, since the boy had been expelled from every decent school in England for lying and stealing and fighting. As proof, DuBois had shown a bitten thumb, while the servant sported a black eye.