In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster (3 page)

Just as with Heather.
Her sister had been provided with a lady’s maid for her kidnapping as well. Their family had taken that as proof that it had been an aristocrat behind the kidnapping; who else would have thought of a maid? That seemed the case this time, too. Was the man sitting opposite her their aristocratic villain?

Studying him again, Eliza suspected not. Heather had been abducted by hirelings, and although — from what she could see compared with Heather’s descriptions — this man, and the maid, too, looked to be a cut above those who’d kidnapped Heather, they nevertheless struck Eliza as people employed to do a job.

Her mind was clearing; it was becoming easier to think.

If this was a repeat of Heather’s kidnapping, they would take Eliza north to Scotland. Shifting her gaze, she surveyed the street beyond the coach’s window. Still feigning unconsciousness, she surreptitiously watched; it took some time, but finally she was certain the coach wasn’t on the Great North Road. It was following the road her family took when visiting Lady Jersey at Osterley Park.

They were taking her west. Or were they not taking her far from London at all?

If they didn’t take her north, would her family know in which direction to search for her? They would assume she’d been taken north … when they eventually realized she’d been kidnapped at all.

Whoever these people were, they were bold and clever. Eliza’s brothers and cousins had been watching her, of all the Cynster girls, most assiduously, but the one place in which they’d assumed she would be safe had been St. Ives House, and they’d relaxed their vigilance.

No one would have imagined that kidnappers would dare strike inside that house, of all houses, and especially not tonight. The mansion had been teeming with guests, with family, with the combined staff of various Cynster households, all of whom knew her.

Despite her earlier griping, she would have given a great deal to see Rupert or Alasdair, or even one of her arrogant cousins, come racing up on a horse.

After being such pests, where were her protectors now that she needed them?

She frowned.

“She’s awake.”

It was the man who’d spoken. Clinging to her pretence, Eliza let her features slowly ease, as if she’d frowned in her sleep. Letting her lids close fully, she made no other movement, gave no sign she’d heard.

The woman shifted nearer; Eliza sensed she was peering at her face.

“Are you sure?”

The woman was definitely a dresser; her diction was good, her tone that of an upper servant to an equal.

Which confirmed Eliza’s suspicion that the man was a hireling, too, not the mysterious laird they’d thought had been behind Heather’s kidnapping.

After an instant, the man replied, “She’s faking it. Use the laudanum.”

Laudanum?

“You said he told you no drugs, no harm to her.”

“He did, but we need to move fast and we need her asleep — and he’ll never know.”

He who?

“All right.” The woman was rummaging in some bag. “You’ll have to help me.”

“No!” Eliza came to life, intending to convince them not to drug her again, but she’d overestimated her recovery. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. She tried to push away the woman, black-haired, dark-eyed, leaning toward her with a small medicine glass containing a pale liquid, but her arms had no strength.

Then the man was on her; manacling her wrists in one hand, with the other he caught her chin, tipped her face up.

“Now! Pour it down her throat.”

Eliza fought to shut her mouth, but the man pressed his thumb to the corner of her jaw and the woman deftly tipped the dose between her lips.

Eliza tried not to swallow but the liquid trickled down …

The man held her until her muscles went lax and the laudanum dragged her down.

The next time Eliza managed to gather her wits enough to think, days had passed. How many, she had no real idea; they’d kept her drugged, propped in the corner of the coach, and had driven on, as far as she knew without any real halt.

Her whole body felt ridiculously weak. Keeping her eyes closed, she let her mind slowly sort through and align the jumbled snippets of information and sparse observations she’d managed to glean in the fleeting moments between the long stretches of drugged insensibility.

They’d taken her out of London on the westward road; she remembered that. Then … Oxford at daybreak; she’d caught a brief glimpse of the familiar spires against a lightening sky.

After that first dose of laudanum, they’d been judicious in its use, forcing her to down only enough to keep her woozy and sleepy, unable to do anything, much less escape. So she had faint memories of passing through other towns, of church spires and market squares, but the only place she recalled with any certainty was York. They’d passed close by the Minster … she thought it had been earlier that morning. The pealing bells had been so loud the sound had hauled her to wakefulness, but then the coach had turned and passed out of the town gate, and she’d slid back into slumber.

That had been the last time she’d woken. Now … letting her head loll, with her lids still too weighty to lift, she reached with her other senses.

And smelled the sea. The distinctive briny scent was strong, the breeze slipping past the edge of the carriage door sharp and fresh. She heard gulls, their raucous caw unmistakable. So … past York and out along the coast.

Where did that leave her?

So far from London, once off the Great North Road her knowledge of the region was spotty. But if they’d traveled to Oxford, then to York … it seemed likely her captors were indeed taking her into Scotland, but avoiding the Great North Road, no doubt because her family would search its length for her.

If her captors had avoided traveling along the major highway entirely, it was possible that no trace of her would be found, not along the highway itself. Which, she suspected, meant that there would be no one riding to her rescue … or at least that she couldn’t count on her family arriving to save her.

She was going to have to save herself.

The thought shook her. Adventures weren’t her forte. She left such things to Heather, and even more Angelica; she, in contrast, was the quiet sister. The middle sister. The one who played the pianoforte and harp like an angel, and actually loved to embroider.

But if she wanted to escape — and she was quite sure she did — she would have to act, by herself, for herself.

Drawing in a deeper breath, she forced her lids open and carefully looked at her companions.

It was the first time she’d had a chance to study them in daylight; they usually noticed she was awakening and quickly drugged her again. The female guard — the one she’d originally taken for a dresser — she now suspected was a nurse-companion, the sort wealthy ton families hired to look after ageing relatives. The woman was neat, efficient, well spoken, and in appearance well presented. Her bountiful dark hair was drawn back in a severe bun at her nape; her pale face and features suggested she was perhaps gentry-born but had fallen on hard times.

There was definitely a hardness in the lines of her face, and even more in her eyes.

The nurse was, Eliza judged, of similar height and build to herself — on the tall side of average height, middling to slender build — and perhaps a few years older. However, being a nurse, the other woman was significantly stronger.

Eliza shifted her gaze to the man who throughout the journey had remained seated opposite her. She’d seen him at closer quarters several times, when he’d held her so the nurse could drug her. He wasn’t the mysterious laird; she’d recalled the description Breckenridge had gathered of that elusive nobleman:
“a face like hewn granite and eyes like ice.”

While the man sitting opposite had clean-cut features, they weren’t especially rugged or chiseled, and his eyes settled the matter; they were dark brown.

“She’s awake again.” It was the nurse who’d noticed.

The man had been looking out of the window. He swung his gaze to Eliza.

“Do you want to drug her again?” the nurse asked.

The man caught and held Eliza’s gaze.

She looked back at him and said nothing.

The man tilted his head, considering. After a long moment, he replied, “No.”

Eliza surreptitiously exhaled. She’d had more than enough of being drugged.

The man shifted, rearranging his limbs, then looked at the nurse. “We need her in her customary excellent health by the time we reach Edinburgh, so we’d better cease drugging her from now.”

Edinburgh?

Lifting her head, straightening her slumped shoulders, then settling back against the coach’s padded seat, Eliza openly and rather haughtily studied the man. “And you are?”

Her voice was hoarse, still weak.

The man met her gaze, then his lips quirked, and he inclined his head. “Scrope. Victor Scrope.” His gaze shifted to the nurse. “And this is Genevieve.” Looking back at Eliza, Scrope continued, “Genevieve and I, and our coachman-guard, have been sent by your guardian to fetch you back from wicked London, to which you had fled from his isolated estate.”

Eliza listened as he outlined essentially the same tale Heather’s kidnappers had used to ensure Heather’s compliance.

“I’ve been told,” Scrope continued, “that you are, as your sister was before you, intelligent enough to comprehend that, given our tale, any attempt to attract attention and plead your cause to anyone en route will only result in you irretrievably damaging your own reputation.”

When he arched a brow at her and waited, Eliza curtly nodded. “Yes. I understand.”

Her voice was still weak, soft, but its strength was returning.

“Excellent,” Scrope said. “I should add that we will shortly be crossing into Scotland, where any attempt to gain help will be even more futile. And in case you were too incapacitated to notice, we’ve avoided traveling on the Great North Road. Even if your famous family search up and down its length, they’ll find no trace of your passing.” Scrope caught her gaze, held it. “So there’s no likelihood of rescue from that quarter. The next few days will be much easier for us all if you accept that you are my captive and that I will not be releasing you until I give you into my employer’s hands.”

His calm, cold confidence brought to mind an iron cage.

Eliza nodded again, but her mind was, somewhat to her surprise, already reviewing, assessing, searching for some way out. Scrope’s reference to Heather confirmed that his employer was indeed the same mysterious laird believed to be behind Heather’s kidnapping, and Eliza was perfectly sure she didn’t want to be handed over to him. Waiting to escape until after she was in the laird’s hands might well be akin to waiting to drop from the frying pan into the fire before reacting to the heat. So … if she couldn’t count on any help from her family, how was she to escape?

Turning her head, she looked out at the passing scenery; in the distance, beyond rocky cliffs, she could see the sea glimmering under the weak sun. If they’d passed through York this morning … she wasn’t sure, but she suspected that whatever coach road they were on, they would have to pass through at least one major town before the border.

She didn’t want to wait until after crossing the border to do whatever she was going to do; as Scrope had intimated, being in Scotland would only further reduce her prospects for rescue.

And it was rescue she needed. With her captors’ tale at the ready, attempting to directly free herself would only lead to social disaster.

Like Heather, she needed her hero to appear and whisk her out of danger.

Heather had got Breckenridge. Who would come for her?

No one, because no one had any idea where she was.

Breckenridge had seen Heather kidnapped; he’d followed her from the start. No one, Eliza felt certain, had any idea where she’d gone.

If she wanted someone to rescue her, she was going to have to do something to make that happen.

She wished she had Angelica with her; her younger sister would be bursting with ideas, jigging with enthusiasm to try them out. Eliza, in contrast, couldn’t think of any clever plan beyond the obvious one of exploiting the single loophole in her captors’ tale of fetching her for her guardian.

If she could attract the attention of someone who knew her, someone of the ton, then her captors’ tale would never stand. And given her family’s wealth and influence, there was every chance that the shocking fact of her being in her captors’ hands for days and nights could subsequently be buried.

But any such rescue would have to occur this side of the border; once in Scotland, her chances of sighting anyone who knew her, and their ability to talk her out of her captors’ custody, would be greatly reduced.

Shifting back into her corner of the coach, she trained her gaze forward, scanning the occasional vehicles traveling toward her. If she saw anyone likely …

In this far distant corner of England, she knew only two families well — the Variseys at Wolverstone, and the Percys at Alnwick. But if her captors continued to avoid the Great North Road, her chances of sighting any member of those households wouldn’t be high.

Looking at Scrope, she asked, “How long before we cross the border?” She managed to make the question sound idle enough.

Scrope glanced outside, then pulled out a fob-watch and consulted it. “It’s just after midday, so we should be in Scotland by late afternoon.” Tucking the watch back into his pocket, he glanced at Genevieve. “We’ll halt at Jedburgh for the night, as planned, then go on to Edinburgh tomorrow morning.”

Eliza looked outside again, staring out at the road. She’d been to Edinburgh twice. If they left Jedburgh in the morning, they’d be in the Scottish capital by midday, and from what Scrope had let fall, that was where they planned to hand her to the laird.

But if they weren’t going to cross the border until late afternoon, and it was just after midday now, she was fairly certain that the coastal road they were on would take them through Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, the nearest major town to both Wolverstone and Alnwick, and, if she remembered correctly, the coach would have to traverse the entire breadth of the town to pick up the road to Jedburgh.