On the Way to the Wedding (45 page)

Really, it was just a matter of time.

Lucy drummed the fingers of her right hand against the floor. Quickly, quickly, index to pinky, index to pinky. Her left hand was tied so that the pads of her fingers faced up, so she flexed, then bent, then flexed, then bent, then—

“Eeeeeuuuuuhhh!”

Lucy groaned with frustration.

Groaned? Grunted.

Groanted.

It should have been a word.

Surely it had been an hour. It must have been an hour.

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And then . . .

Footsteps.

Lucy jerked to attention, glaring at the door. She was furious. And hopeful. And terrified. And nervous. And—

Good God, she wasn’t meant to possess this many simul-taneous emotions. One at a time was all she could manage.

Maybe two.

The knob turned and the door jerked backward, and—

Jerked? Lucy had about one second to sense the wrong-ness of this. Gregory wouldn’t jerk the door open. He would have—

“Uncle Robert?”

“You,” he said, his voice low and furious.

“I—”

“You little whore,” he bit off.

Lucy flinched. She knew he held no great affection for her, but still, it hurt.

“You don’t understand,” she blurted out, because she had no idea what she should say, and she refused—she absolutely refused to say, “I’m sorry.”

She was done with apologizing. Done.

“Oh, really?” he spat out, crouching down to her level.

“Just what don’t I understand? The part about your fl eeing your wedding?”

“I didn’t flee,” she shot back. “I was abducted! Or didn’t you notice that I am tied to the water closet?”

His eyes narrowed menacingly. And Lucy began to feel scared.

She shrank back, her breath growing shallow. She had long feared her uncle—the ice of his temper, the cold, fl at stare of his disdain.

But she had never felt frightened.

“Where is he?” her uncle demanded.

Lucy did not pretend to misunderstand. “I don’t know.”

“Tell me!”

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“I don’t know!” she protested. “Do you think he would have tied me up if he trusted me?”

Her uncle stood and cursed. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?” Lucy asked carefully. She wasn’t sure what was going on, and she wasn’t sure just whose wife she would be, at the end of the proverbial day, but she was fairly certain that she ought to stall for time.

And reveal nothing. Nothing of import.

“This! You!” her uncle spat out. “Why would he abduct you and leave you here, in Fennsworth House?”

“Well,” Lucy said slowly. “I don’t think he could have got me out without someone seeing.”

“He couldn’t have got into the party without someone seeing, either.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“How,” her uncle demanded, leaning down and putting his face far too close to hers, “did he grab you without your consent?”

Lucy let out a short puff of a breath. The truth was easy.

And innocuous. “I went to my room to lie down,” she said.

“He was waiting for me there.”

“He knew which room was yours?”

She swallowed. “Apparently.”

Her uncle stared at her for an uncomfortably long moment. “People have begun to notice your absence,” he muttered.

Lucy said nothing.

“It can’t be helped, though.”

She blinked. What was he talking about?

He shook his head. “It’s the only way.”

“I—I beg your pardon?” And then she realized—he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to himself.

“Uncle Robert?” she whispered.

But he was already slicing through her bindings.

Slicing? Slicing? Why did he have a knife?

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“Let’s go,” he grunted.

“Back to the party?”

He let out a grim chuckle. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Panic began to rise in her chest. “Where are you taking me?”

He yanked her to her feet, one of his arms wrapped viselike around her. “To your husband.”

She managed to twist just far enough to look at his face.

“My—Lord Haselby?”

“Have you another husband?”

“But isn’t he at the party?”

“Stop asking so many questions.”

She looked frantically about. “But where are you taking me?”

“You are not going to ruin this for me,” he hissed. “Do you understand?”

“No,” she pleaded. Because she didn’t. She no longer understood anything.

He yanked her hard against him. “I want you to listen to me, because I will say this only once.”

She nodded. She wasn’t facing him, but she knew he could feel her head move against his chest.

“This marriage will go forward,” he said, his voice deadly and low. “And I will personally see to it that it is consummated tonight.”

“What?”

“Don’t argue with me.”

“But—” She dug her heels in as he started to drag her to the door.

“For God’s sake, don’t fight me,” he muttered. “It’s nothing that you wouldn’t have had to do, anyway. The only difference is that you will have an audience.”

“An audience?”

“Indelicate, but I will have my proof.”

She began to struggle in earnest, managing to free one On the Way to the Wedding

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arm long enough to swing wildly through the air. He quickly restrained her, but his momentary shift in posture allowed her to kick him hard in the shins.

“God damn it,” he muttered, wrenching her close.

“Cease!”

She kicked out again, knocking over an empty chamber pot.

“Stop it!” He jammed something against her ribs. “Now!”

Lucy stilled instantly. “Is that a knife?” she whispered.

“Remember this,” he said, his words hot and ugly against her ear. “I cannot kill you, but I can cause you great pain.”

She swallowed a sob. “I am your niece.”

“I don’t care.”

She swallowed and asked, her voice quiet, “Did you ever?”

He nudged her toward the door. “Care?”

She nodded.

For a moment there was silence, and Lucy was left with no means to interpret it. She could not see her uncle’s face, could sense no change in his stance. She could do nothing but stare at the door, at his hand as he reached for the knob.

And then he said, “No.”

She had her answer, then.

“You were a duty,” he clarified. “One I fulfilled, and one I am pleased to discharge. Now come with me, and don’t say a word.”

Lucy nodded. His knife was pressing ever harder against her ribs and already she had heard a soft crunching sound as it poked through the stiff fabric of her bodice.

She let him move her along the corridor and down the stairs. Gregory was here, she kept telling herself. He was here, and he would find her. Fennsworth House was large, but it was not massive. There were only so many places her uncle could stash her.

And there were hundreds of guests on the ground fl oor.

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And Lord Haselby—surely he would not consent to such a scheme.

There were at least a dozen reasons her uncle would not succeed in this.

A dozen. Twelve. Maybe more. And she needed only one—just one to foil his plot.

But this was of little comfort when he stopped and yanked a blindfold over her eyes.

And even less when he threw her into a room and tied her up.

“I will be back,” he bit off, leaving her on her bottom in a corner, bound hand and foot.

She heard his footsteps move across the room, and then it burst from her lips—a single word, the only word that mattered—

“Why?”

His footsteps stopped.

“Why, Uncle Robert?”

This couldn’t be just about the family honor. Hadn’t she already proved herself on that score? Shouldn’t he trust her for that?

“Why?” she asked again, praying he had a conscience.

Surely he couldn’t have looked after her and Richard for so many years without some sense of right and wrong.

“You know why,” he finally said, but she knew that he was lying. He had waited far too long before answering.

“Go, then,” she said bitterly. There was no point in stalling him. It would be far better if Gregory found her alone.

But he didn’t move. And even through her blindfold she could feel his suspicion.

“What are you waiting for?” she cried out.

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. And then she heard him turn.

His footsteps drew closer.

Slowly.

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Slowly . . .

And then—

“Where is she?” Hermione gasped.

Gregory strode into the small room, his eyes taking in everything—the cut bindings, the overturned chamber pot.

“Someone took her,” he said grimly.

“Her uncle?”

“Or Davenport. They are the only two with reason to—”

He shook his head. “No, they cannot do her harm. They need the marriage to be legal and binding. And long-standing. Davenport wants an heir off Lucy.”

Hermione nodded.

Gregory turned to her. “You know the house. Where could she be?”

Hermione was shaking her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. If it’s her uncle—”

“Assume it’s her uncle,” Gregory ordered. He wasn’t sure that Davenport was agile enough to abduct Lucy, and besides that, if what Haselby had said about his father was true, then Robert Abernathy was the man with secrets.

He was the man with something to lose.

“His study,” Hermione whispered. “He is always in his study.”

“Where is it?”

“On the ground floor. It looks out the back.”

“He wouldn’t risk it,” Gregory said. “Too close to the ballroom.”

“Then his bedchamber. If he means to avoid the public rooms, then that is where he would take her. That or her own chamber.”

Gregory took her arm and preceded her out the door.

They made their way down one fl ight of stairs, pausing before opening the door that led from the servants’ stairs to the second fl oor landing.

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“Point out his door to me,” he said, “and then go.”

“I’m not—”

“Find your husband,” he ordered. “Bring him back.”

Hermione looked conflicted, but she nodded and did as he asked.

“Go,” he said, once he knew where to go. “Quickly.”

She ran down the stairs as Gregory crept along the hall.

He reached the door Hermione had indicated and carefully pressed his ear to it.

“What are you waiting for?”

It was Lucy. Muffled through the heavy wood door, but it was she.

“I don’t know,” came a male voice, and Gregory realized that he could not identify it. He’d had few conversations with Lord Davenport and none with her uncle. He had no idea who was holding her hostage.

He held his breath and slowly turned the knob.

With his left hand.

With his right hand he pulled out his gun.

God help them all if he had to use it.

He managed to get the door open a crack—just enough to peer in without being noticed.

His heart stopped.

Lucy was bound and blindfolded, huddled in the far corner of the room. Her uncle was standing in front of her, a gun pointed between her eyes.

“What are you up to?” he asked her, his voice chilling in its softness.

Lucy did not say anything, but her chin shook, as if she was trying too hard to hold her head steady.

“Why do you wish for me to leave?” her uncle demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.” He lunged forward, jamming his gun between her ribs. And then, when she did not answer quickly enough, On the Way to the Wedding

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he yanked up her blindfold, leaving them nose to nose. “Tell me!”