The Switch (20 page)

"Oh, my."

"Oh, m'lady," Bessie murmured, eyeing her with concern. "Are you not well?"

Charlie ignored Bessie's question, doing her best to concentrate on anything but how she was feeling. "Oh, dear."

"Are you all right, m'lady?" Bessie moved anxiously closer, staring at her face with a half-horrified expression.

"Oh, Lord." Charlie groaned, closing her eyes and trying to concentrate on bright sunny days in the park. On fresh green grass… nice firm, unmoving glass that a body could stand on without feeling as though they were pitching about in a small, tight, airless carriage that was bouncing along a rutted road.

"Yer lookin' kind of green."

"Oh, God!" Charlie grabbed desperately for the door, thrusting it open in a panic.

Crying out in alarm, Bessie grasped her arm, keeping Charlie from leaping out of the moving vehicle right away. By the time she had shaken off the maid's hold, the man riding on the footman's stand at the back of the carriage had spotted the open door, shouted a warning, and the carriage was slowing to a halt. It had nearly come to a stop when Charlie stumbled weakly out onto the roadside. The villain from the back of the carriage was there at once, solid and stem before her, blocking her path. Charlie covered her mouth and tried to step around him, but he mirrored her movement,
determined to stop her from succeeding at what he thought was an escape attempt.

Charlie tried one more time to avoid him as her stomach roiled dangerously, but he remained directly before her. There was little she could do to prevent what happened when her stomach refused to stay down and he refused to get out of the way. Charlie tossed her stomach's contents all over the man's feet and lower legs.

"Oh, gor! Putrid damn… Ugh!" The man stumbled several steps away, trying to escape the fowl stuff, but as it was on him, he couldn't possibly succeed. Charlie felt a moment's embarrassment at what had happened, but soothed herself with the fact that she had done all she could to avoid the event… Besides, he
was
a villain.

"They were here, my lord."

Radcliffe straightened from examining the new horses the stable master was harnessing to the carriage in trade for the original four, to eye Stokes questioningly. "Charlie?"

"Aye, my lord. It seems she was taken ill. She had… er… passed up her breakfast on one of the fellows. They stopped here to trade horses and let the fellow clean up. They also purchased some laudanum. Presumably they are hoping to make her sleep the rest of the way so that she causes them no more trouble."

"How long ago was this?"

"They apparently arrived nearly six hours ago, but had trouble finding and purchasing the laudanum so that they only left four hours ago."

"If we leave right away, we will have gained two hours on them," Tom said with excitement.

Radcliffe nodded, but wasn't quite as excited by the fact. They were still four hours behind them, and with Charlie in a laudanum-induced sleep, there was little likelihood she could slow them down further. Their only hope of catching them before reaching Gretna was if the other carriage lost a wheel or something.

A roar went up from the man in the back that was quickly echoed by those at the front as they glanced around to see Charlie swaying in the open door of the carriage. They managed to bring the hack to a halt just as she leapt to the side of the road.

Sinking to her knees, she proceeded to toss up the latest dose of laudanum she had been given. Actually, she did not mind being sick this time and hadn't since the first time they had forced the laudanum on her. She'd had
every intention of sticking her finger down her throat to bring up the drug the first time they had forced it on her, but had hardly needed to. They had barely set off in the coach again when she had felt her stomach roil. They had just made it around the first bend in the road when she had felt it charging up her throat. Just as the tincture Beth had given her on the way to London had refused to stay down, so had the laudanum. Charlie had been getting sick at regular intervals ever since, forcing them to stop repeatedly, much to their captors' disgust.

It was a shame Bessie was not right and that Radcliffe wasn't chasing after them. Then at least, this bout of misery she was having to endure would be working to their advantage by allowing him to catch up to them. Unfortunately, there was no way he could know that they had been kidnapped and where they were headed.

"Not much farther now."

"Aye. But will we be in time?" Radcliffe nibbed a weary hand over his face.

Tomas was driving again. Stokes was in the cabin with Beth and the Hartshairs, resting.
They had been taking turns, one man sleeping, one driving, and one keeping the driver company.
Every six hours of the last nearly forty hours they had switched roles. Now they were not even an hour away from their destination. Radcliffe would have been relieved to have the nearly two-day trip done with were he not so terrified that at this very minute Charlie might be being forced to marry Carland. That worry made the last hour of the trip pass like days for Radcliffe. By the time they arrived, he was so wound up that he was off the carriage before it had even come to a standstill.

Striding into the stables, he quickly found the man in charge, learned that no one fitting Charlie and Bessie's description had arrived at his establishment, arranged for the care of the horses, then hurried back outside. "They did not stop here. We shall have to ask around."

"M'lady?"

Charlie opened her eyes slowly, and groaned.

The world was still rocking. Was this hell not over yet?

"M'lady?" Bessie repeated, bending to peer down at her.

They were once again on the floor of the carriage. Actually, the floor of the carriage was where Charlie had spent the last night and day of this trip. It was where the men had deposited her after her last bout of sickness, and Charlie, too weak and miserable to bother moving, had stayed there. Bessie had joined her in an effort to make her more comfortable. Charlie was positive no one in England had a better maid than Bessie.

"M'lady? I think we are nearly there."

Charlie raised her head to peer out the window, her gaze finding a small grove of firs in the near distance. She had heard enough to know

that that was the landmark to look for. "Aye. We have arrived."

"What are we going to do?"

Charlie peered at her through the pre-dawn darkness. Unfortunately, Charlie had no idea what they would do, but as she had gotten the girl into this mess, she tried to rouse herself to some sensibility. Pushing herself weakly to a sitting position, she then dragged herself up to sit on the bench seat and sighed as fresh air blew in the open window to brush soothingly across her face.

"We will await an opportunity, then make our escape," she said with more bravado than faith. Weak as she was, it would have to be one wing-ding of an opportunity for them to escape.

Bessie either had more faith in Charlie than she deserved, or was too polite to show her doubt.

She said nothing as she shifted from the floor to sit on the bench seat opposite her mistress.

"What news?" Beth asked anxiously as the three men finally returned.

"Nothing," Radcliffe admitted unhappily. "We—" He paused as a carriage rolled quickly past, the clip-clop of the horses' hooves too loud to talk over.

Surrounded by the three men, Beth peered toward the carriage through an inch of space between Tom and Radcliffe, then clutched at her husband's arm, a choked gasp slipping from her throat.

"What is it?" Tom asked worriedly.

"Charlie," she breathed, staring after the carriage. It was heading north. The only direction the men had not yet checked. "I saw Charlie in that carriage," she explained, then frowned. "She looked ill. She was terribly pale."

Turning soundlessly, Radcliffe was after the carriage like a shot. Tomas hesitated long enough to glance toward the stables. "Trade our horses for new ones and have them harnessed to the carriage, Beth. Then follow us," he instructed, only to frown when he turned to glance at his wife and found she was gone, running down the street behind Radcliffe, her pert little behind jiggling with each step she took in the tight breeches.

"I shall take care of it, my lord."

"What?" Tom glanced at Stokes blankly, then blinked and nodded. "Oh… oh, fine. Good. Do that. Thanks." Then he was gone, too, chasing after his wife's jiggling behind.

"M'lady?"

Charlie blinked her eyes open weakly, startled to find that she had fallen asleep again, and sitting up! How on earth could she sleep at a time like this? The answer was simple enough, she realized unhappily. Nearly two days of heaving with no water or food being offered could do that to a body. Her gaze slid to Bessie's worried face and she sighed. "Never fear, Bessie, once they realize that you are not Beth, they will let you go."

Biting her lip, Bessie shook her head. " 'Tis not me I am worried about, m'lady."

All Charlie could manage was a grunt at that. Then she turned and peered out the window to the inn they had stopped before. The inn where her uncle and Carland waited, no doubt, she thought with despair. It was beginning to look as if she would be marrying the brutal bastard after all, and she shuddered at the thought of the wedding night ahead. She imagined Carland touching her as Radcliffe had—Nay. Not like Radcliffe. Carland had no gentleness in him. He would touch her in the same places, but in a far different manner.

Maybe she would be lucky and he would beat her to death early on in the marriage, she thought fatalistically. If she had been feeling better, Charlie would have been ashamed of such thoughts, but she wasn't feeling better. She felt half-dead. She was weak, exhausted, dry as dust. She also felt terribly
sorry for herself. And to think she had been furious just the morning before that Radcliffe had wanted to marry her out of pity and guilt. That morning and her arrogance now seemed a lifetime away. Today, she would have taken him had she had to pay him. Come to that, she'd pay the nearest
farmer to allow her to marry one of his pigs to avoid marrying Carland.

Raised voices drew her gaze to the man who had approached the inn. He was returning with another man, this one still in his night rail. Charlie recognized him at once as Symes, her uncle's man of affairs.

"Put your veil back on, Bessie," she murmured as they drew near. She would keep the girl with her as long as she could.

Charlie had never had much use for Symes, having witnessed several of the petty cruelties he had inflicted on the rest of the staff over the years, so she did not bother greeting him when he peered through the carriage window. His glance slid swiftly over Bessie in her veil and gown, then stopped on Charlie, eyes widening at her male garb, then narrowing on her pale face and sunken eyes. Pulling his head back out, he turned on the men. "What the deuce did you do to her? She looks half-dead!"

"She don't travel well," one of the men snapped. "Now, where's our money?"

"You will have to wait until His Lordship wakes up."

"What?"

Charlie nearly laughed at the dismay on her kidnappers' faces as they heard that. It seemed they didn't know the sort of man they had done this dirty deed for, or perhaps they worked for the blackmailer and were just picking up the payment for goods delivered. Aye, that made sense, she guessed. Otherwise the men would have realized that Henry liked his pleasures to excess. He drank, ate, and gambled to excess. He also slept to excess and had been known to take his riding crop to
anyone foolish enough to by to disturb his sleep… for any reason. Even a matter like the arrival of his runaway niece and the need to pay off her kidnappers would never be allowed to intrude on his rest.

Uncle Henry never got up before noon and it was barely dawn now. He had probably only been abed for an hour. Charlie supposed that meant that she had several more hours of freedom left… Unless Carland was an early riser. She hoped not. She fervently hoped that he had caroused with Henry throughout the night and would rise just as late.

"You heard what I said," Symes said shortly. "You will have to wait until he awakens."

"The devil take that!" the big-nosed man snarled furiously. "Go wake the bugger up."

"I am not waking him up. And I strongly suggest that you do not either," Symes added sharply as the beefy man turned
determinedly toward the inn. "Not if you wish to get paid."

That brought the man up short. Whirling back, he eyed Symes narrowly. "Yer damn right I want to get paid. We've brought the girls and he'll pay for them."

"You brought the girls
late"
Symes collected pompously. "You were supposed to arrive at least six hours ago. He was up then and would have taken them off your hands and paid you gladly for them
then
."

"That one was sick. She kept leaping off the carriage to puke by the side of the road," the man complained. "It slowed us down."

Symes shrugged. "That is your problem. Now, you will have to wait."

"Well, what in Hades are we suppose to do with her until he gets up?"

"That is your problem, too. But I strongly suggest you don't lose her." Turning on those dry words, Symes returned to the inn and his bed.

"There it is," Tom said as he came to a halt beside Radcliffe.

Their being on foot, it had taken them several minutes to catch up to the carriage. Radcliffe had cursed himself for a fool a dozen times a minute as he had raced along. He should have kept the horses harnessed, then they could have followed right behind them. But he had expected to arrive after his quarry not before.

This explained why they had not heard news of the other carriage during the last day of their travels. They had questioned people each time they stopped to change horses, hoping to learn if they were gaining on them, but had learned nothing. No one had matched the descriptions they had given with that of any group that had passed through. Radcliffe had thought they were merely choosing different inns to stop at to trade horses. Now, he realized that they may have been doing that at first, but somewhere along the way, they had ridden right by them.

His gaze slid over the three men standing by the carriage and talking. He had stopped quite a distance from the carriage and the inn it sat before, not wanting to alert the kidnappers to his presence. But he was close enough to tell that the three men were agitated about something.

"Have they taken her in yet, do you think?"

Radcliffe frowned. "I do not know. I thought I saw someone entering the inn as it came into view, but I could not tell who it was or if they were alone."

"Well, if they have not, we could rush them when they do."

"Aye. That may be the best idea," he agreed, glancing around as Beth joined them. With his longer strides, Tom had passed her some distance back. "Where is Stokes?"

Beth shook her head breathlessly and Tom answered the question. "He was to follow with the carriage and Mrs.—" He paused as the hack rattled into view. Stokes and Mrs. Haitshair shared the driver's bench while her children both hung out the windows, helping to keep an eye out for them.

Stepping into the street, Radcliffe raised his arms over his head and waved until he was sure Stokes had spotted him, then gestured for Beth and Tom to follow as he walked to meet the carriage.

Bessie raised her head and opened her eyes. She had been sending up another prayer. Just in case the first five hunched or so had been misheard.

Now, she glanced worriedly at Lady Charlie, taking in her pallor, the smudges under her eyes, and the dead slumber she was in. Her mistress needed sustenance, as Bessie had told their captors after the nasty man had gone back into the inn, but they had ignored her pleas even for water. She supposed they were too annoyed at having to cool their heels to care about Lady Charlie's welfare.

"Surely the women are not still inside the carriage, Radcliffe? They must have taken them inside the inn as soon as they arrived."

"Aye." Radcliffe sighed unhappily at Tom's words. The seven of them had sat cramped inside the carriage for well over an hour. He, Mrs. Hartshair, and Stokes were wedged on the bench seat on one side, and Tomas, Beth, and the two children crowded onto the other. They had been watching the three men play dice beside the carriage for the entire time. Not one of the men had even glanced at the carriage. Charlie and Bessie must already be inside. Which merely made things more difficult.

"What are we going to do, my lord?" Beth asked anxiously.

"We will have to find out where they are and get them out."

"They will be guarded," Beth murmured. "And that guard would most likely be Symes." At their questioning glances, she explained, "Symes is my uncle's man of affairs. He is only about my size, but he is a dead shot and he is never without his flintlocks. He probably sleeps with them under his pillow."

"Then there are Carland and Seguin to consider," Tom said. "And Lord knows how many men they may have brought with them."

"What are you suggesting?" Radcliffe snapped furiously. "That we give up? Just leave Charlie to Carland?"

"Nay. Of course not," Tom assured him. "We just need a plan. We shall get her out and save her."

"We may not need to get her out to save her," Beth murmured. When Radcliffe turned on her questioningly, she added, "I was recalling on the way here how Charlie and I used to switch places all the time. Most often it was just for fun, but sometimes it was to get out of doing something we did not wish to do."

"I do not see how that is relevant here, Beth," Tom said gently.

She turned to peer closely at Radcliffe. "You said in London that the two of you were to be married?"

Radcliffe winced as he recalled his arrogance while making the announcement to Charles, but nodded.

"Well, if you were married to her, Carland could not do so."

"Exactly. So we must get her out—" he began, pausing when she shook her head.

"Not if we made the switch again."

"Now hold on!" Tom cried in dismay. "The idea here isn't to get Charlie out of danger and put you into it."

"I would not be in danger," Beth assured him calmly.

"You had best explain," Radcliffe said, feeling as confused as Tom looked.

"You could marry me—" Beth began, but Tom's head nearly hit the roof of the carriage as he sprang upright in his seat.

"The devil you say! I will do many things to save your sister, but giving you up is not one of them. You are
my
wife."

"Aye, but if he married me as—"

"As Charlie" she had meant to say, but Tomas didn't give her the chance before interrupting irately. "Now see here, I have heard just about enough of this talk. You are married to me, and that is that!"

"Er… my lords, I believe you may be misunderstanding what Lady Elizabeth is trying to say," Stokes said quietly.

"Misunderstanding?" Mrs. Haitshair snorted in disgust, then took it upon herself to explain the matter. "She's saying she could marry His Lordship as Lady Charlie."

When Tomas and Radcliffe stared at the cook blankly, she shook her head. "Look at her. She is wearing the same clothes as Lady Charlie. She looks like Lady Charlie. She even sounds like Lady Charlie. She could pretend to be Lady Charlie while you. Lord Radcliffe, marry her. She can say 'I do, sign her name—" Pausing, she glanced worriedly at Beth. "You
can
copy her signature?"

When Beth nodded, she relaxed and continued, "Then, once the ceremony is over, you can walk straight into the inn and demand your
wife
back'

"My God." Tomas sank back on the seat, wonder on his face. "It may work."

"I do not know." Radcliffe frowned, then shook his head. "Nay. They already have Charlie, and the wedding will be registered with today's date. They will know that she could not have married me."

"That will not matter if she is me," Beth pointed out, and both men immediately looked confused again. Realizing that they had not quite grasped the concept of switching, she explained patiently. "If after the wedding, I continue to pretend to be Charlie and we confront Uncle Henry claiming that Charlie is me, Beth, it will work."

"Oh, I see!" Tomas exclaimed. "We will tell them that Charlie is you, and since you and I married four days ago, they cannot force her to marry Carland. And since Charlie, whom you will be playing, will have just married Radcliffe, they cannot force you to many Carland either. You will both be safe."

"Exactly!" Beth smiled at him widely.

Though his head was spinning, Radcliffe was hopeful. "Will Charlie know to pretend to be you?"

Beth nodded firmly. "She and I have done this sort of thing often enough that she will catch on at once to what is happening."

"Shall I take us to the priest, my lord?" Stokes asked.

"All, well, he is not a priest really. Well, perhaps he is, I am not sure," Beth murmured uncertainly, and Tomas covered her hand and squeezed gently as he explained, "You will be taking us to a fisherman. Stokes. He performs the marriages around here."

Radcliffe accepted that news with equanimity. He had sustained so many shocks in short order that he felt sure he was now immune to them…

Until he got a good look at the fisherman. A portly fellow, wearing a blue chess coat of indiscriminate age, he eyed them solemnly at first, pushing a huge gob of tobacco about inside his cheek until he understood that he was to many Radcliffe to Beth… who, of course, was still dressed as Charles.
The man nearly choked on his draw.

"Oh, nay! I'll no' many ye to a boy. 'Tis a sin aginst God and all creation. Marriage is a sacred rite between a man and a woman, not something to be twisted by yer sort."

Radcliffe flushed with embarrassment as he realized what the man was thinking. Tom appeared consumed with the effort not to laugh. Stokes was looking nonplused and quite unsure how to handle this situation, and Mrs. Hartshair was busy soothing and rocking her son, who had stumbled getting out of the carriage and scraped his knee. That left Beth to set the man straight. "I am a woman, sir," she announced dryly, whipping the wig from her head with a great flourish that did not impress the man at all.

"What, and greasy hair is to fool me into thinkin' yer a girl?"

Beth's hand raised to her hair in alarm. She had not had an opportunity to bathe since the night they had planned to spend at the inn on the way back to London from Gretna Green the first time. Bathing was the first thing she had done on reaching the inn, doing so even before joining Tomas for a meal below.

Thank goodness, she thought now, for she had spied her uncle on returning below. Luckily, he had not spotted her, and she had quickly hurried back upstairs, sending a note below with a maid explaining the situation to Tomas. Intelligence being one of the things she loved about Tomas, he had used his and done a bit of eavesdropping on Uncle Henry's conversation with Carland before meeting her in their room to relate what he had heard. Their plans to rest the night at the inn had been put aside at once for the need to warn Charlie. Beth had not had an opportunity to bathe since.

Sighing, she plopped the wig back on her head and glanced toward the tall, thin woman who had answered the door to their knock and who may or may not have been the man's wife. "Is there a room where we may have some privacy?"

When the woman looked uncertain, the man scowled. "What are you wanting with her?"

"I am going to prove that I am a woman," Beth explained patiently.

"And how wid ye be plannin' on managin' that?"

Beth flushed, but raised her chin and announced with great dignity, "By showing her my breasts."

The rude little man burst out laughing at that as his gaze dropped to the area in question. "What for? I can see plain as day ye havena got any."

"They are bound," Beth choked out with no little embarrassment.

"Sure they are," he muttered with patent disbelief. "You can show her well enough there in the
corner."

When Beth hesitated, he sneered again. "What? Changed your mind now that you canna
threaten her into sayin' what ye want?"

Tomas lost his temper at that and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, preparing to punch him. The man merely smiled and shrugged. "Hit me if ye like, but see if ye can get anyoue to marry yer friends here that way."

"Tom," Beth munnured in a strained voice. "Mayhap you could give your cape to Mrs. Hartshair. She can hold it up for privacy for me."

Reluctantly releasing the man, Tomas shrugged out of his cloak and handed it over, and Mrs. Hartshair followed Beth to the
corner the man had indicated and held it up for her as the woman followed. She waited patiently as Beth quickly and with as little thought as possible shrugged out of her doublet, vest, and shirt. The woman's eyes sparked with interest when she saw the cloth binding Beth's chest, but she said nothing until Beth had unwound the cloth, freeing her aching breasts.

"Oh, my," she breathed with amazement.

"What is it?" the fisherman asked, taking a step forward that stopped short when Tomas stepped in front of him with a deadly expression.

"She's breasts a'right… and a fine pair they are, too," the woman announced. "Huge."

Radcliffe could hear Beth's groan of mortification and felt sympathy pinch his patience. "Will you marry us now?"

The man hesitated. "Maybe I should just be sure and see fer mesel'f—"

His words were cut off by Tom's sudden hand at his throat.

"Her word is enef, I guess," he squeaked out, his eyes bugging. "I'll marry 'em."

Tom didn't release the man until Beth was rebound and dressed, and the three people had returned. Then he gave a little squeeze before releasing him. "Get to it, then."

"Lady Charlie? Lady Charlie!"

Blinking her eyes open, Charlie sat up abruptly, swaying with dizziness as she peered around at the alarm in Bessie's voice. "What is it?" Her voice was a husky croak, but Charlie hardly noticed when she spied Bessie's veiled face. "What's the matter?"

"Something is going on. Another carriage has arrived and—" Her voice died abruptly as the door opened and she turned to peer at it. One moment she was there.
The next she was gone. It happened so fast that Charlie almost missed the hands that had reached in and snatched the girl out.

"Bessie," she cried, moving forward only to sag weakly against the closed carriage door as it slammed in her face. Charlie blinked out the window to see the young maid being dragged away toward another carriage. It took her a moment to recognize the crest on the side.

"Seguin," she breathed with dismay, then, "Nay! She is not Beth! She is not!" Her cry ended on a fit of coughing as her dry, sore throat caught on the cry. By the time she had recovered, the carriage was gone and Bessie with it.

Cursing under her breath, Charlie watched the men make their way back to her carriage and move to the side facing the inn. Sliding along the seat, she peered out to see that they were settling back into a game of dice. She watched for several minutes and when they hadn't glanced toward the carriage once in that time, she decided they must think her too weak to cause them any trouble… And five minutes ago they would have been right. But that was before Bessie had been taken. Now, knowing she had got the girl into this mess, Charlie was
determined to save her. Determination could give strength to the weakest body.