Lady Caro (20 page)

“Drink it or I’ll pour it down your damn throat!” he said, taking a step toward her.

“No, please, I’ll drink it,” she agreed, reaching for
the cup
, certain now that its contents were drugged. No wonder Henry had no concern about Oldfield and Plymtree disbelieving him. They would find her dead asleep beside Henry in his bed. Later, if she tried to cry that she had been abducted and drugged, no one would believe her story, especially not coming on the heels of Lady Lewis’s Banbury tale.

Caro tried frantically to think of some way to escape. She brought the cup to her face, sniffing its contents as she simultaneously raised her knees to her chest. There was an odd, bitter odor to the chocolate that made her more certain than ever that it was tainted.

“Hurry up and drink it,” Henry ordered.

“Yes, I will, but I feel so unwell. Please bring me that basin in case I cast up my accounts after drinking it. I should not like to ruin your coverlet.”

Henry muttered an angry oath but, nevertheless, turned and went to get the basin. The instant his back was turned, Caro lifted the coverlet and dumped the contents of the cup onto the bed beneath her raised legs. Hastily, she returned the cup to her lips. When Henry turned toward her with the basin, she appeared to be gulping its contents.

Then she made a face. “What odd-tasting chocolate,” she said, replacing the cup on the tray.

The evil smile her words brought to his lips sent shivers down her spine. When a couple of minutes had passed, Caro yawned and said sleepily, “I do not believe I need the basin. I am suddenly so tired and groggy. All I want to do is to sleep.” She slid down beneath the coverlet, forcing herself to keep from grimacing as she felt the sticky chocolate beneath her, and pretended to drift off to sleep.

After a couple of minutes, Henry called softly, “Caro, Caro, are you awake?”

She pretended that she was not. He picked up her wrist and she let it fall like a dead weight. He lifted it again and shook it lightly. Still receiving no response, he muttered. “She’ll be out cold until long after Oldfield and Plymtree have left.” He let her wrist drop onto the mattress. “Sleep well, my Lady Vinson. I shall join you after I have finished my preparations for our guests.”

Caro heard him cross the room and go out the door. Then the key turned, locking it from the outside. Her heart sank. She had counted on his neglecting to lock the door. She had planned to slip out while he was gone and escape before Oldfield and Plymtree arrived. Once they saw her, whether they believed her story or not, there would be a dreadful scandal, and Ashley would surely divorce her.

Somehow she had to get out before she was seen in Henry’s house. Throwing back the covers, she jumped out of bed. Her only other hope lay in climbing out one of the room’s two long windows. A quick inspection, however, discouraged her. The room was at the back of the house on the second floor. In addition to the first floor, there was a high rustic beneath it. Caro gulped as she saw how heart-stoppingly far down the ground was.

And there was not a tree in sight. She was trapped.

Chapter 27

Ashley’s traveling carriage was moving at a speed that most would have considered foolhardy on crowded London streets.

“Must we continue at this breakneck pace?” Mercer Corte complained. “Curzon Street is just ahead. I am confident that this wild-goose chase we have been sent on signifies nothing more than an attempt to collect the reward you offered for information about Chester Moking’s whereabouts.”

“I wish that I could share your confidence, but I cannot,” Ashley replied glumly, his fingers drumming impatiently on his knee as he reviewed the events of the previous twenty-four hours. First, there had been the appearance at Bourn House of a rough, burly individual dressed in shabby pants held up by a rope. The visitor would be happy to tell m’lord where Chester Moking could be found if m’lord would but hand over the reward he had offered.

In retrospect, m’lord should have been suspicious when the caller put up no strong argument to being paid only a tenth of the money until Ashley could make certain that Moking was indeed at the Blue Moon Inn in Brighton, as the informer said.

“Never heard of a Blue Moon Inn in Brighton,” Ashley had said.
The man had replied jovially, “Not a ken a swell like yer’d ’ave heard a.”

Nor, as it turned out, had anyone else heard of it, for it did not exist.

At first, Vinson had been inclined to accept Mercer’s theory that the man had merely been trying to bilk him out of the offered reward. But the more Ashley thought about it, the more certain he became that his trip to Brighton had been a ruse planned by his cousin to get him out of town. But why? The only possible answer was that Henry had some evil scheme afoot involving Caro and wanted her husband out of the way while he executed it.

After several sleepless hours, the viscount, growing increasingly convinced that his wife was in danger, had risen and insisted that they return to London at once.

They had set out before dawn. A yawning Mercer Corte, disgruntled at being dragged from bed at such an ungodly hour, had asked, “But what could Henry possibly do to Caro?”

This question had plagued Ashley all the way to London. The ride seemed interminable, but at last his carriage was turning down Curzon Street and home was in sight.

Looking out the window, Mercer said, “ ’Tis shocking what one sees on even the best streets these days. Look at that sorry creature, barefoot and wrapped in a blanket.”

Ashley glanced out. Recognizing the derelict as Caro’s groom, Sam, he shouted for the coachman to stop. Even before the carriage rolled to a halt, Ashley leaped out and ran up to Sam, who appeared to be wearing little else but the blanket. “Where are your clothes?”

The groom blanched at the sight of his master and dropped his eyes in embarrassment. “Stolen, milord.”

“What happened?” Ashley demanded tersely, certain that his worst fears were being confirmed.

Sam related how he had gone, as was his custom, for a pint at a nearby alehouse the previous night. A stranger had sat down beside him and been very friendly, eventually insisting on buying him a second pint. Sam remembered nothing after drinking it until he awoke this morning with an aching head in a back alley of St. Giles. His clothes and shoes were gone, and he had been forced to barter his ring for the blanket he was wrapped in. Then he had set out on the long walk to Curzon Street.

“Prigged your livery, but left your ring,” Ashley observed grimly.

“Odd,” Sam agreed. “What can they have thought to gain by taking it?”

“My wife.” Ashley broke into a run for Bourn House, a half block away. As he burst inside, Boothe and Caro’s maid, Helene, were worriedly conferring.

“Where is my wife?”

“My lady has not returned from her morning ride,” Boothe said.

Ashley dashed back outside as his carriage pulled up. He jumped on the box beside his startled coachman and took the reins. If the carriage’s pace to Curzon Street had been breakneck, its speed now was positively suicidal as Ashley guided it skillfully through the traffic, swerving to miss other vehicles and cursing pedestrians.

Inside the coach, Mercer Corte could be heard inquiring in pungent terms whether Ashley was a raving lunatic or merely touched in the upper works. Even the viscount’s coachman, who was known for his steel nerves, closed his eyes and appeared to be praying fervently as the equipage raced toward Chesterfield Street.

Caro stared at the long drop from Henry’s bedroom window to the ground. She felt as though she were staring over the edge of a precipice from which there was no escape.

She tried to summon up her failing courage, but her good sense told her it was far too dangerous to attempt to escape via this route. However, if she did not get away before Oldfield and Plymtree saw her in Henry’s bedroom,

she would be ruined by the ensuing scandal and lose her husband in the bargain.
Take care
,
Caro! I will not tolerate
a wife who involves me or my name in a scandal!

Would Ashley think that she had gone willingly to his cousin’s bed? Her heart seemed to shatter into a thousand fragments at the thought of Ashley casting her off.

She eyed the window with renewed determination. It was the only possible way of escaping before Oldfield and Plymtree saw her. Trying to pump up her courage, she recalled how she had climbed down from her room at Aunt Olive’s without the assistance of a tree. But there the distance to the ground had not been nearly so great. She would be a fool to try this drop.

But if she did not, she would lose Ashley.

All other concerns receded before that paramount one.

It propelled Caro to the bed. Quickly, she stripped the linen and blankets, frantically knotting them together in a colorful, makeshift rope. When she finished, she tied one end around the leg of the armoire, then retrieved her clothes.

Unfortunately, they were hardly suitable for climbing out of upper-story windows. Caro hastily donned her skirt and, with shaking fingers, tied it up about her thighs to keep it from hampering her descent down the rope. Her modesty rebelled at the thought of the view anyone standing on the ground below would have. But this was the back of the house, and no one would be there, so why was she worrying?

Her modesty suffered another jolt when she put on the top of her riding habit. With the buttons ripped from it, she had no way to fasten it. She could hardly flee unnoticed through the streets of London with her bodice gaping open. Hurrying to the armoire, she searched through the garments that were stored there and selected a man’s black wool cloak.

Caro dropped it to the ground beneath the window, then lowered the makeshift rope. She gulped when she saw that its end dangled several feet short of the ground. She would have to drop the rest of the way!

Leaning over the window ledge, Caro gripped its wood with white-knuckled fingers as she stared at the ground so far beneath. She struggled vainly to conquer the fear that paralyzed her now that the moment of action was at hand. Did she have the courage to go through with this mad attempt?

Thinking again of Ashley, she forced herself to climb up on the window ledge. Grasping the bedclothes in both hands, she slowly began her perilous descent, inching her way down, her feet braced against the wall.

Her arms soon ached from the unaccustomed strain on them. By the time she was halfway down, she strongly doubted that her tortured limbs would continue to function until she could reach the ground, still so far beneath her. She dared not look down for fear her courage would fail her. Instead, she concentrated on the brick wall and on forcing her reluctant hands and arms, weak with exhaustion, to perform their agonizing task.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, she reached the end of the makeshift rope and found that her feet were still well off the ground.

Suddenly, without warning, strong arms seized her from behind, encircling her hips. She was so shocked and terrified that her numb hands fell away from the improvised rope she was clutching and her heart seemed to explode in her chest. A groan of despair was wrenched from her. Her torturous descent had been in vain. Henry had caught her!

Her captor lowered her feet to the ground, saying harshly, “You little idiot!”

Caro gasped at the sound of Ashley’s furious voice. Where had he come from? He forced her around to face him. His expression, already deadly, turned murderous when he saw her torn riding habit. She had never seen him so angry, and her heart sank. He would never believe her queer tale.

“I am torn between wanting to wring that foolish neck of yours,” he ground out, “and giving thanks that I caught you before you could break it.”

“I wish I had broken it,” she said miserably. All that she had been through that day—the abduction, her terrifying descent from the upper-story window, and now the knowledge that Ashley was irrevocably lost to her—was too much for her to bear, and she began to sob in despair.

With a violent curse, Ashley snatched up the black cloak that she had dropped to the ground and wrapped it around her. Swinging her up into his arms, he carried her through a passage that ran along the side of Henry’s house to the street in front, where Mercer Corte was waiting beside the viscount’s traveling carriage.

Ashley thrust her inside, saying roughly to Mercer, “Take her to Bourn House.”

Mercer jumped into the carriage, and it began to move immediately.

“No,” Caro cried desperately, “Ashley, please come with me.”

But he had turned his back on her. If he heard her, he gave no sign of it. Then the carriage turned the corner, and he vanished from her sight.

And, no doubt, from her life as well.

Chapter 28

Needham, in the dress of one of Henry Neel’s servants, appeared before his employer with the livery that had been stolen from Vinson’s groom wrapped in a bundle.

Henry gestured at it. “Burn that at once. We cannot risk it being found here. You know what you are to do when Oldfield and Plymtree arrive. I must depend on you because I have given my servants the day off.”

“Never do to ’ave ’em spoiling yer game,” Needham agreed. “Yer only worry’s the lady’s reaction to yer visitors.”

“She is so drugged she won’t even know that they are there,” Henry replied.

A loud banging at the front door echoed through the house.

“Damn, Oldfield and Plymtree are here already,” Henry cried, glancing at the long case clock. “I’ve never known either of them to be less than a half hour late, and now they are ten minutes early. Give me time to get upstairs, then let them in. You know what to tell them, then bring them up to my bedroom.”

Henry dashed up the stairs, unfastening the sash of his dressing gown as he ran. At the door to his room, he had to fumble in his pocket for the key, and he cursed himself for not having left it in the lock. Finally, though, he extracted it. As he opened the door, he heard a strangled
shout from Needham, then a loud crash. But his attention was riveted to his bed, which had been stripped bare to its mattress. He looked frantically about the room. Caro was nowhere in sight. Then Henry saw the rope of bedclothes hanging over the windowsill. For a moment he was too stunned to move. The little fool must be lying dead beneath his window.

There was no way that he could explain that. He reeled with shock at how badly his—or more precisely, Lady Roxley’s—scheme had backfired. Now he would be accused in two deaths, not just one. When Ashley discovered his cousin was responsible for his wife’s death, he would not rest until he saw him ride the three-legged mare.

A loud crash on the first floor, followed by footsteps running up the stairs, brought Henry back to the present. The steps were too light and quick to be Needham’s. Neel fled toward the back stairs. As he reached them, he turned and saw Vinson running down the hall toward him.

With the specter of the gallows shadowing him, Henry fled down the stairs and through the dark halls of the rustic to a door in it that opened at the front of the house below street level.

As he burst through the door and up the stairs that led to the street, a groom was trying to control a black stallion, young and high-strung, that pawed nervously at the paving stones in front of an impressive mansion surrounded by tall iron palings.

“Stop!” Ashley was calling, his voice close behind Henry. “You can’t escape me.”

Desperate, Henry raced up to the stallion, snatched the reins from the startled groom, and leaped into the saddle. The horse, frightened by this sudden maneuver and by unfamiliar hands on the reins, reared violently. Henry managed to stay on, but then the horse reared again and again. Henry felt as though he were trying to hang on to a lightening bolt. Then suddenly he was flying through the air toward the iron palings.

At Bourn House, Caro, still sobbing, was undressed and bundled into bed by Helene, who had drawn the drapes and tried to give her young mistress something to make her sleep. But Caro refused it, determined to remain awake until Ashley returned. She must try to counteract the lies that Henry would be telling her husband even now.

Finally, her door opened and Ashley came in. Caro sat up as her husband crossed to her. In the flickering light of the single candle that Helene had left burning beside the bed, his face was as grim as she had ever seen it. Hope, which had leaped at the sight of him, crumbled into dust when she saw his expression.

Shivering, she pulled the bedclothes up to her neck as though to protect herself from his furious gaze, which she met with despairing eyes.

“What did Henry do to you?” he demanded.

Why, she wondered dully, was Ashley bothering to ask her when he had already heard Henry’s lies and no doubt believed them? “What did he tell you that he did?” she asked listlessly.

“I am asking you, Caro. Did he, er, touch you?”

“He tore the buttons from my riding habit,” she said dully, “and he threatened to force a cup of drugged chocolate down my throat.”

“That is not what I mean.”

A flush spread over Caro’s face as she comprehended what he did mean. “No, not that way.” She could not keep a trace of bitterness from her voice. “Like my husband, Henry prefers more voluptuous women. You were right when you told me that he was not interested in me. He wanted only to create a scandal. What did he tell you? That he had seduced me?”

Ashley, his face troubled, sat down on the bed beside her. “He told me nothing. He is dead.”

Caro was shocked out of her lethargy. “You killed him?”

“No, although God knows I wanted to when I saw you coming down that makeshift rope. I felt as though I lived a dozen lifetimes before you descended low enough for me to reach you. I went after Henry with murder in my heart for what he had put you through. He tried to escape from me by stealing a horse.” Ashley passed a weary hand over his eyes as if he were trying to erase a terrible scene from his mind. “It threw him, and he was impaled on a fence. That is why I have been gone so long. There were a great many questions to answer.”

“And now there will be a dreadful scandal,” Caro said bitterly. “Will you divorce me?”

“What?” he asked blankly.

“You said that you would not tolerate a wife who involved you in scandal.”

“Caro, no one will know that you were at Henry’s house today. I have seen to that. If there is any scandal, it will be over Henry’s responsibility for my brother’s death.”

“Henry did not want the title,” Caro said. “He told me that he did not mean to kill your brother, only to humiliate him by making him lose the race, but that William disobligingly took ill and died.”

“Oh, God,” Ashley groaned. “So that was it. What a damnable waste.” He shook his head sadly. “I cannot blame my cousin for hating William. He treated Henry so contemptuously.”

“I did not go to your cousin’s house,” Caro said, certain that her husband would never believe her improbable tale. “He abducted me.”

“Yes, I know. Poor elfin.”

“You believe me?” Caro’s voice quavered in surprise and relief.

“Of course. You had given me your word, and I knew that, no matter how reluctantly you did so, you would never go back on it.” Gathering her in his arms, Ashley lifted her onto his lap and hugged her to him. “Now, tell me what happened.”

When she finished her story, her husband’s arms tightened around her as though he never meant to let her go, and he said fervently, “You were very brave, elfin, but I would have infinitely preferred a scandal to your risking that lovely little neck of yours by climbing down from the window.”

Tears glistened in her eyes. “But you would have divorced me!”

He brushed her tears away gently with his thumbs. “And you do not want that?” he asked softly, his eyes grave.

“No!” She could no longer hide her feelings from him. Her arms tightened around him. “Oh, Ashley, I love you so much.”

His lips descended on hers in a long, fierce kiss that left them breathless.

“If you love me so, elfin, why have you held me at such a distance in recent weeks?” The baffled hurt in Ashley’s voice made Caro wince. “You acted as though you preferred the company of every other man in London to mine.”

For the first time, it occurred to Caro that her behavior had wounded as well as puzzled him. “I wanted your company desperately,” she confessed, “but I did not want to be like Lady Yarwood and embarrass you by hanging on you when you cannot love me.”

He looked shocked. “Whoever gave you the nonsensical idea that I don’t love you, elfin? Or that I prefer more voluptuous women?”

Caro, remembering what he had told Lady Roxley, could not suppress two large tears that rolled down her cheeks. “You did.”

His hands tightened around her arms. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

Caro hung her head. “I would be breaking my word that I will not vex you about your mistress.”

“Since I do not have a mistress, you cannot vex me about her and, therefore, you cannot break your word,” he said roughly.

“Oh, Ashley, don’t try to gammon me,” she cried, the aching of her heart echoed in her voice. “I know the truth. I
overheard you tell Lady Roxley that she need never worry that I would steal your love from her.”

Her husband swore softly, his face tightening into grim, angry lines. “And, hearing that much, you ran away, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said miserably, wondering how he knew that. “I could not bear to hear any more.”

“You would have saved us both a great deal of misery had you stayed to hear me to the end. What I told my
former
mistress was that she need not worry that you
would
replace her in my affections because you
already had
done so.”

For a moment, Caro could only stare at him in disbelief. “Truly?”

“Truly, elfin.”

But she was still skeptical. “How can you possibly love me instead of Lady Roxley? She is so beautiful.”

“Believe me, elfin, it is very easy. She is a faithless, selfish creature, but it took me a long time to see beyond her beauty and manipulative charm.”

Still, Caro would not let herself succumb to the happiness that was welling in her. “But you did not love me when you married me.”

“No,” Ashley admitted. “We had known each other less than a fortnight. But I was very fond of you. Once we were married, affection quickly deepened into love. But it took me awhile to realize that. It was not until I went back to Bellhaven and saw you running so eagerly to greet me that I knew that I had lost my heart to you.”

“Oh, Ashley,” she breathed, “why did you not tell me that you loved me?”

“I thought that I did, although not in words perhaps, each time we made love.” His hand caressed the curve of her hip resting on his lap. “The nights have been so lonely for me without you beside me. Did you miss me, too?”

“Too much,” she confessed, embarrassment tinting her cheeks as she remembered her wild, unladylike response that had so shocked him. Now more than ever, she wanted to be exactly the kind of wife he wanted.

“What do you mean, ‘too much’?” he asked gently, lifting her chin so that he could look into her eyes.

“You drive me wild,” she answered candidly, “and when you do, I cannot, no matter how hard I try, act like a lady of the first respectability.”

Ashley’s eyes gleamed with laughter. “Elfin, a man does not want a lady of the first respectability in bed.”

“Even if she is his wife?”

“Especially if she is his wife.”

“What does he want?”

His mouth lowered, hovering over hers. “A woman like you, my elfin.”