Of Noble Birth (7 page)

Alexandra struggled
against the hands that held her fast, but there was little she
could do as she landed hard on the floor of Lady Anne’s carriage.
Her assailants climbed in around her. She could hear their urgent
whispers, feel them jostle about. Then a voice said, “Let’s go,”
and the conveyance lurched into motion.

The blackness inside the
bag sparked Alexandra’s memory of the trunk incident with Willy,
causing the same panic to return. Once again caught in a tight,
dark place, she writhed in misery. “Help! Let me out,” she
wailed.

“What’s wrong with her?”
someone asked. “She’s frantic.”

“Nothing. She’s been
pampered and petted all of her life. That’s all. She’ll be fine,”
responded the same man who had spoken to her before, calling her
“sister.”

Alexandra desperately
wanted to believe the words spoken by that bitter voice. She
would
be fine, she told
herself, over and over again. There
was
enough air to breathe. But
something much deeper contradicted any
thing so rational, and
tears began to stream down her face.

“Please. Let me out. I can’t be in the dark.
I can’t breathe!”

Suddenly the hood was yanked off her head.
“That
’s
enough!” A man with shocking blue
eyes and long black hair pulled back into a queue at his nape, a
man Alexandra had never seen before, glared at her. “Tears might
work with other men, but they have little effect upon me.”

Alexandra gulped as she tried to stifle her
tears and suck air into her lungs at the same time. “Who are you?
What do you want with me?”

Her blue-eyed captor gave her a glacial
smile. “I’m afraid we have never had the pleasure of being formally
introduced. I am Nathaniel Kent, your older brother.”

“My what?” Alexandra shook her head in
confusion. “I have no brother.” She struggled to right herself, but
with her hands bound behind her back, she could only wiggle
helplessly until one of the other men grasped her by the elbow and
pulled her into an upright: position. She almost thanked him before
she caught herself.

Nathaniel chuckled without mirth. “Evidently
our dear father has neglected to mention a few minor details
regarding his past. But what’s a marriage, or a child, for that
matter, to a man like him? Nonetheless, I am who I say.”

Alexandra studied the men surrounding her.
They looked like desperate fellows. Dressed in tattered, homemade
breeches and shirts, many wore thick beards and sported jagged,
irregular scars on various parts of their bodies. Tattoos decorated
bulging biceps: swords, dragons, or hearts with the name of some
lady love.

Nathaniel, obviously their leader, was
different.

Black tapered trousers revealed a lean,
lithe build, and his white, blousey shirt was clean and well made.
He possessed handsome, aristocratic features that could have been
chiseled from stone: high cheekbones, a strong jaw, a cleft chin.
Even while he sneered at her, Alexandra could see that Mr. Kent
would be quite appealing to the ladies, if his lips ever curled
into a sincere smile. His only physical flaw appeared to be the
absence of part of one arm. A wound? A birth defect? Alexandra
couldn’t tell.

“You haven’t answered my other question,”
she said, recovering her composure. Her circumstances were still
forbidding, but at least she was free of the blasted hood. “What do
you want with me?”

“Are you truly as oblivious as you would
have me believe?” Nathaniel scoffed.

Alexandra lifted her chin and tried to shift
into a more comfortable position. Lady Anne’s dress was twisted
about her legs, hampering what little movement she could manage,
but it offered her the only clue to this surprising occurrence.
Nathaniel had to have something to do with the duke’s daughter. If
so, Alexandra need only convince him of her identity, and perhaps
he would let her go.

“What if I’m not who you think I am—” She
gasped as his hand shot out and long fingers grasped her chin,
turning it up toward his face.

“Don’t play games with me,” he said through
gritted teeth. “I watched you go in, and I watched you come out. I
know exactly who you are.”

Alexandra tried to wrench away, but his
fingers dug deeper into her flesh. “You’re hurting me,” she
complained.

“Not half as badly as I’d like to,” he
replied, then released her from his bruising grip.

“What are you? Some kind of animal?”

Nathaniel grinned, an evil leer, promising
in its portent. “Save your compliments for when you know me
better.”

“I have no intention of knowing you better.
I’m not Lady Anne. I swear I’m not.” She looked at the circle of
faces around her as if searching for verification, but the men were
obviously skeptical. “My name is Alexandra Cogsworth. I’m a
needlewoman,” she continued, hoping to elicit a shred of doubt.
“I’m only wearing this dress to escape my stepfather. You have to
let me go. I have to catch a train to London—”

“Is Trenton sure about ‘er?” the mammoth of
a man sitting next to her asked, interrupting the flow of her
panicky chatter.

Alexandra’s eyes darted to Nathaniel’s
face.

“Of course he’s sure. Pay her no mind. What
else can she be expected to say?” He cocked one eyebrow at her as
if in challenge, making Alexandra clench her teeth. She wanted to
rake her nails across Nathaniel’s face. She had suffered enough at
Willy’s hands to last her a lifetime. She had no intention of
allowing another man to take his place. Nor did she intend to let
this band of cutthroats make her miss her train to London and Aunt
Pauline—her train to freedom.

“Please. You must listen to me.” She lowered
her voice, keeping a tight rein on her temper. “I’m not who you
think I am. Ask anyone. Stop. Let me out.”

“Gag her,” Nathaniel responded, and a stout,
muscular man withdrew a long strip of white cloth from a
satchel.

“No! Please! You must believe me. If I don’t
make it to London soon, I’ll miss—” The gag reduced Alexandra to
squeals, but she refused to fall silent.

Wild with fright and more than a little
angry, she continued to grunt and kick, banging about until she
slipped from her seat and landed, hard, on the floor.

“Damn hellion.” Instead of moving her back
to the seat, Nathaniel held her ankles while the man called Trenton
tied them together. Then he leaned back and crossed his feet on top
of her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do,
and all but the huge man followed suit.

Alexandra couldn’t move anymore. The weight
of their legs made her sag in exhaustion, and she lay, covered in a
sheen of sweat, trying to draw enough air through the thick cloth
to recover her breathing. She had indeed escaped Willy—and now she
was heading straight for the fiery furnaces of hell.

Nathaniel’s gaze came to rest on her face,
but he said nothing to her. Instead, he rapped on the roof. “How
much longer?”

A voice issued from the driver’s seat: “Only
a few minutes more.”

“Hurry,” Nathaniel responded. “The
constabulary will be nipping at our heels at this rate.”

After another four or five miles, the
carriage began to slow. Alexandra wondered where they were. She was
disoriented, and she couldn’t see anything through the window
except a round spot of blue sky. Only the smell of hay and manure
and green things growing led her to believe they were in the
country somewhere, far from the filthy confines of Manchester.

“Sit her up and take off the gag,” Nathaniel
said as he opened the door and jumped to the ground. “I think she
might be willing to behave herself now.”

The same man who had gagged her removed the
cloth, leaving Alexandra’s lips feeling swollen. She stretched her
jaw to make sure it still worked and took a deep breath, grateful
to fill her lungs with air again. “Where are we?” she asked.

The large burly fellow, who took up twice
his share of room, began to respond. “On our way to
Liv—
Oop,”
he gasped as the short, stocky
man sitting next to him elbowed him in the ribs.

“Don’t tell her anything, Tiny.” The stocky
man turned narrow eyes on Alexandra before hopping to the ground
himself. Then the others, three in all, filed out after him. Tiny
was the last to go.

“I know ye ain’t used to bein’ treated so
rough and such, miss, I mean, m’lady,” he explained. “An’ Nathaniel
ain’t a bad bloke. He wouldn’t ‘ave bothered ye if yer father
‘adn’t gone an’ nabbed—”

“Tiny, get out here.” Nathaniel scowled at
them both through the door. “She’s not hurt.”

“No, sir. She ain’t. But she ain’t used to
bein’ treated like this, an’ I was only tryin’ to explain that we
didn’t want to do this. ‘Twas the only way.”

Nathaniel rolled his eyes. “I’m sure she
feels much better now. If you’re finished apologizing, we’re
ready.”

“Aye, sir.” Tiny’s small brown eyes, mere
slits in his fleshy face, looked back at Alexandra. “Excuse me,
m’lady,” he said and heaved his large bulk outside.

Nathaniel waited for Tiny to clear the door
before leaning in again. “Come on, Miss High and Mighty, this is
where we part with your carriage.” Grabbing Alexandra’s ankles, he
slid her across the floor toward him. Then he wrapped his arm
around her waist. “I can’t promise you a better seat, but I must
insist you join us.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Alexandra
told him as he brought her up against his chest.

He gave her a devilish grin. “I’m sure it
wouldn’t be my first.”

He carried her to a less
conspicuous conveyance hidden in a copse of trees, a rented vehicle
that looked more like an old stagecoach, and dumped Alexandra on
the floor once again.

“Trenton, let Tiny drive,”
he called, and the carriage swayed dramatically as Tiny hefted
himself up top.

A tall, stringy man
Alexandra hadn’t seen before climbed inside. Fair-complexioned,
with strawberry-blond hair and brown eyes, he looked almost as out
of place amid the other ruffians as Nathaniel did.

“Do you think we can make
it before nightfall?” Nathaniel asked him.

“Not by a long shot. These
old nags aren’t quite the animals your sister had pulling her
around”—Trenton cast Alexandra a sideways glance—”but hers are
lathered and need to rest. I’m not sure it would be wise to
wait.”

“They’re not my horses.
And that’s not my carriage.” Alexandra took a deep breath, hoping a
simple, rational explanation might finally convince them. “I told
you, my name is Alexandra Cogsworth. I’m simply a seamstress who
put on this dress to escape my stepfather. And I have to make it to
London in four days, or I’ll miss my boat to India.”

Nathaniel looked
quizzically at her while Trenton stifled a laugh. “Perhaps we’re
doing the Indians a favor, then.”

Alexandra shook her head
in exasperation. “If I could, I’d show you my hands. I’ll wager
that you’ve not seen a lady born to the nobility with calluses like
mine. They come from hard work, not the kind of idle stitchery
performed in drawing rooms after an eight-course meal.”

Nathaniel reached behind
Alexandra and turned up her palms. He studied them for a moment,
then looked to Trenton.

“I don’t know how she got
those,” Trenton admitted, “but I told you, she’s Anne all
right.”

Alexandra groaned. It
didn’t help that she and the duke’s daughter had similar builds and
coloring. “When was the last time any of you saw Lady
Anne?”

“What was it, four or five
years ago?” Nathaniel asked.

“It had to have been at
least four. I saw her with your father in London,” Trenton said.
“Remember?” He turned to Alexandra. “But I’ll never forget your
face.”

Alexandra rolled her eyes.
“Do you realize what you’re saying? You’ve kidnapped a woman based
on someone you saw four years ago.”

“And I suppose Greystone’s
carriage sitting outside that dressmaker’s doesn’t count for
anything?” Trenton replied. “We saw you go in,
remember?”

“I can explain that,”
Alexandra said, and she tried to do so. But they purposefully
ignored her. Talking amongst themselves, they left her to stew in
her frustration.

“Let’s try and make it to
Liverpool tonight,” Nathaniel said. “If the horses need a break, we
can stop at a posting station.”

Alexandra finally fell
silent and listened to every word that followed, trying to learn
why she had been captured and what Nathaniel and his men had
planned for her. If they wouldn’t let her go, she’d have to escape
somehow.

But they said little to
illuminate the mystery. Besides a few references to a ship docked
at Liverpool, they spoke only of cargo and auctions and supplies.
Still, the farther they took her from Manchester, the more
frightened she became. If she missed Aunt Pauline, she’d be on her
own.

What would they do when
they eventually learned her true identity? she wondered. What would
they do if they didn’t? Alexandra worried and fumed until, finally,
the incessant rocking of the carriage made her too tired to keep up
her vigil, and she slept.

* * *

Alexandra woke suddenly.
She had been dreaming. Willy was beating her again. She had to get
away. But as her eyes blinked open, moonlight filtering through the
small window above her head illuminated the five gruff men who had
abducted her. Willy was nowhere around. Only the pain was real. Her
hands and feet were numb below the ropes that held them fast. They
were beginning to swell, and her back ached terribly, as if she’d
been sitting on the same hard floor for a week.