Vixen (43 page)

Chloe struggled as Denis hauled her to the ground, but she was no match for his strength. Though she kicked and punched with the blind force of desperation, he lifted her off the ground and bundled her into the chaise as the door swung open.

She fell to her hands and knees on the floor as Denis leapt in behind her. A whip cracked and the vehicle surged forward with a violent jolt that sent her sprawling again as she struggled upright. Someone laughed. It was a familiar laugh.

Pushing backward, she righted herself so that she was kneeling. She looked up at the three men, two of whom were regarding her with varying degrees of amusement. Denis, on the other hand, bore the satisfied, slightly smug air of a man who has accomplished a singularly demanding task. What in the name of all that was good connected Denis to Jasper?

“Why?” she asked him. “Why, Denis?”

“You’ll discover soon enough,” Jasper said. “Sit up on the seat.” His pale eyes, flat and expressionless, skidded over her face.

A wild rage abruptly overtook her, banishing the fear that had been born earlier out of uncertainty. If this was the enemy, she knew it … or thought she did.

She sprang at her brother, moving from her knees to a flying body of fury in one neat movement. She had no idea what she hoped to achieve, or even if she expected to achieve anything. Her gloved hands reached for those flat eyes that seemed to contain no soul, and her knee came up into his chest.

The next minute she was reeling as his open palm cracked viciously against her cheek. Her ears rang and she fell backward across Crispin on the opposite seat. Still she struggled, feet and arms flailing, making what destructive contact she could with the three bodies sharing the confined space with her.

Denis grabbed her ankle and she kicked viciously into his belly.

“Leave her to me. She’s mine now.” A rich certainty infused Crispin’s voice. Denis released his hold, watching through narrowed eyes.

Crispin wrestled Chloe’s slight frame facedown across his lap, wrenching her arms behind her as he held her. Jasper pulled off his cravat and tied her wrists. Then he picked her up and dumped her into the corner of the carriage next to Crispin.

“You’ve a great many lessons to learn, little sister,” he said, breathing rather heavily. “Fortunately, I make a good teacher … maybe a little short on patience, but you’ll learn all the quicker, I imagine.”

Chloe was too stunned to reply. Her face throbbed, her wrenched arms were beginning to ache, and the cravat was uncomfortably tight around her wrists. Instinctively, she pressed backward into her corner, in no doubt as to the reason behind this abduction.

Her eyes slid sideways to Crispin. He was smiling in the way he had when he’d pulled the wings off butterflies as a child. She had once said to Hugo that Jasper couldn’t force her to marry Crispin. But then she hadn’t fully understood the meaning of force.

The chaise jolted in another pothole and she fell sideways, unable to balance herself with her bound hands. Crispin pushed her upright again. She huddled backward into her corner again and closed her eyes to shut out the three pairs regarding her with the predatory interest of hunters who’ve finally snared their prey.

Where was Hugo? But what difference did it matter where he was? Never in a millennium would he connect Denis DeLacy with Jasper.

“W
here’s Chloe, Dolly?” Hugo entered the drawing room before dinner, a somewhat mournful Dante on his heels.

“Why, goodness me, I thought she was with you.” Lady Smallwood put down her embroidery and blinked at her cousin. “I haven’t seen her since nuncheon.”

“What!”
Hugo impatiently pushed Dante’s wet nose away from his thigh. “How could you not have seen her? Is she in her room?”

“I assumed she was with you,” Dolly repeated. “I’m not usually told when you and she go off together.” There was a hint of self-righteous grievance in the statement.

Hugo spun on his heel and ran down to the hall, yelling for Samuel.

“Eh, what’s up now?” Samuel appeared from the kitchen, wiping his mouth with his table napkin. “In the middle of me dinner, I am.”

“Where’s Chloe?”

“ ’Ow should I know? I ’aven’t seen ’ide nor ’air of the lass since nuncheon. Thought she was wi’ you.” Sensing Hugo’s agitation, he looked perplexed. “You mean she’s not?”

“No, she’s not. I haven’t seen her since early this afternoon.” Hugo forced himself to think clearly, to order his thoughts. Could she have had plans for the evening she’d forgotten to impart … or perhaps chosen not to? Like the Billingsgate affair.

It was not impossible. But it was unlikely. Chloe was an uncomfortable and incompetent liar. Her mischievous but generally purposeful schemes were never intended to be kept secret for any length of time.

She’d been going for a drive with Denis DeLacy. Had there been an accident? The curricle overturned? A stumbling horse? A lost shoe? Highwaymen?

But it was eight o’clock. Chloe had gone driving with DeLacy at two. Six hours! No ordinary accident could have happened in that time. Usually, if she went for a drive in the early afternoon, she’d be home by five o’clock at the latest. If there’d been an accident, then they had three hours leeway in which to deliver a message of some kind. Unless she was lying with a broken
neck beneath the wheels of DeLacy’s curricle … how well did the damn youth drive? Was he reckless? All young men were reckless.

He thought of his own youth … of the number of times he’d driven a team when he couldn’t see straight … of the times when he’d snatched the reins of a stagecoach from the hapless driver and careened down the road with screaming passengers, waving a bottle of burgundy over his head and shooting his pistol in the air.

Dear God in heaven! How chickens came home to roost.

“I’m going to Curzon Street,” he said, taking the stairs three at a time. A few minutes later he was back, drawing on his gloves, a caped overcoat hanging from his shoulders.

Samuel, who had discarded his napkin and abandoned his dinner, was in the hall, buttoning up his own coat. “So what’s at Curzon Street?”

“DeLacy’s mother’s house,” Hugo said shortly, opening the door. “I can’t think of anywhere else to start.” He set off down the street almost at a run, Samuel panting along behind him.

“Go around to the mews and see if there’s a pair of grays and a curricle in the stable,” Hugo ordered as they reached the DeLacy mansion. Samuel went off and Hugo banged the knocker.

The butler opened the door and bowed. “The family are at dinner, sir. May I take your card?”

“Only if Denis DeLacy is in,” Hugo said shortly.

“Mr. DeLacy, sir, is not in.” The man stood holding the door with an air of impatient courtesy.

“Has he been back this afternoon?”

“No, sir. I understand Mr. DeLacy is spending the evening out of town with friends.”

“Which friends?”

“I am not privileged to know, sir.” The butler moved back, preparatory to closing the door.

Hugo put his foot in the opening. “Don’t be in such a hurry, my good man.”

There was something about his tone and the glitter in his green eyes that caught the butler’s attention. “Sir?” he said stiffly, but made no further move to end the conversation.

“Mr. DeLacy went out in his curricle this afternoon. At that point did you know he was not intending to return?”

“I believe a message to that effect came somewhat later, sir.”

“How much later?”

“At around six o’clock, I believe, sir.”

Two hours ago. Clearly he didn’t have to worry about an accident. What the devil was going on? Hugo removed his foot, waved a dismissive hand at the butler, and ran back to the street.

Samuel appeared around the corner from the mews. “Two grays, lookin’ fair winded to me,” he said, falling into step. “Someone’s been pushin’ ’em mighty ’ard. The ’ead groom was swearin’ worse than the lass’s poll parrot. Says it’s been two hours since they come in wi’ some job ostler who vanished as soon as he’d dropped ’em off. Groom still can’t get ’em cooled off proper.”

“Two hours,” Hugo repeated. “So the horses came back with a message carried by a stranger that their driver was not returning. Samuel, what the hell is going on?”

“Seems to me,” Samuel said slowly, “that makin’ off with the lass is gettin’ to be a habit with some folks.”

“Jasper!” Hugo stopped dead in the middle of the street. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, of course. The Congregation. Why on earth didn’t I think … ?”

If Denis DeLacy had followed his father into the Congregation
just as Crispin had followed Jasper, then Denis would be bound by an oath of obedience to his leader. Hugo had been so busy worrying that Chloe would hear the truth about himself from her attentive suitor, he’d completely missed the real danger attached to any connection with the Congregation. DeLacy had seemed such an inoffensive lad … but then, hadn’t they all—most of the time?

“Congregation?” Samuel jumped out of the path of an oncoming hackney, shoving Hugo with him. The jarvey leaned down from his box and poured forth a string of obscenities.

“It’s a long story,” Hugo said, his mouth grim. “A long story and an old one.” He stood frowning, options and speculations chasing each other in his head.

Where would Jasper have taken her? In London, they’d have to find a priest who’d turn a blind eye to marrying a young girl against her will … and Chloe would make that fact very clear. She’d not go docile to the altar. It would take time to subdue her into an appearance of compliance, and Jasper didn’t have that kind of time. He’d want her married and bedded without delay. Once it was done, Chloe’s fortune would automatically come under her husband’s control. It was the law of the land. What happened to Chloe after that probably wouldn’t concern her brother unduly, although it would interest Crispin.

Hugo remembered the vicious temper Crispin had evinced that day in Manchester when Chloe had run to Rosinante’s rescue. He remembered the sullen cowardice of his behavior when Hugo had squeezed the truth out of him on the road to Manchester. Such a contemptible character would enjoy revenge on a helpless captive. And if he was a member of the Congregation—and of course he was—then he would have learned by now the licentious pleasures of the drug-induced trance as he
pushed out the boundaries of sensation, crossing the thresholds of evil in the crypt. He and Denis would have learned it all by now, even if they were not yet as depraved as their leader.

They would be taking her to Shipton. Hugo knew it as clearly as if Jasper had told him. In Shipton, Jasper would have his own people, who knew how to keep their mouths shut, who knew what happened if they didn’t. In Shipton, he could keep Chloe shut away from prying eyes and he would have his own priest. Jasper had sowed the seeds of his influence widely, using fear, intimidation, bribery, whichever power tool worked the best in each case. He’d have a priest willing to turn a blind eye.

And they’d have the crypt.

He saw Elizabeth standing in the crypt, terror in her drugged eyes as she at last understood what role her husband had devised for her. He saw Elizabeth … but it wasn’t Elizabeth, it was her daughter, Chloe, standing by the bier in the light of the altar candles. The daughter in her mother’s place … the feud come full circle. How it would please Jasper. Oh, what deep pleasure it would give him to avenge his father’s death in that fashion.

A wave of nausea surged through him, a momentary sense of helplessness … and then came the cold conviction that if he had to, he would kill Jasper as he had killed Stephen.

When they took Chloe to the crypt, he would be there.

“We’re going to Shipton,” he said softly to the waiting Samuel.

“Shipton!” Samuel whistled. “You reckon that brother of ’ers is mixed up in this, then?”

“Up to his filthy neck,” Hugo said softly. “And I am going to break every corrupt bone in his body. They’ve
a six-hour start. If I’m right, Jasper’s plans will be centered on the crypt.” He was talking almost to himself as he maintained his fierce pace back to Mount Street. “Crispin and young DeLacy will be with him.”

They wouldn’t hurt her until after the wedding. If it was necessary, Jasper would use drugs to keep her quiet on the journey. He wouldn’t risk drawing attention to his party by marking her in any visible way.

Drawing comfort from this conviction, he said briskly, “The lass doesn’t have the stamina to ride from London to Shipton, so they’ll be using a chaise. We should pick up the trail soon enough.”

They had reached the house now and he ran up the steps. “Samuel, are you prepared to ride with me? It’s a long haul, but we’ll make better time than in a carriage.”

“I’m with ye,” Samuel said gruffly. “We startin’ out now?”

“At dawn. They’re bound to stop for the night, and if we ride all night, we’ll only have to rest in the day. We’ll leave at first light and pick up the trail at their first halt.”

T
hey seemed to have been bumping along in the ill-sprung chaise for hours. Late afternoon had given way to dusk, and the chill in the air intensified. No one had spoken for a long time.

Chloe sat slumped in her corner, every inch of her skin crawling with the awareness of Crispin beside her. Occasionally his thigh pressed hard against hers and she knew it was no accident. How could she face being married to him … sharing a bed with him … doing with him what she had done with Hugo? She felt sick and swallowed desperately, praying her body wouldn’t betray her, wishing she had her hands. She felt so helpless without them.

She forced herself to think clearly, to examine her
position, hoping that focusing her mind would ease the panic. If they forced her into this marriage, what would happen? What would Hugo do? Could he do anything? People did get divorced. The king was trying to divorce Queen Caroline, although without much success. But it wasn’t unheard of. Presumably Crispin would keep her fortune anyway, so perhaps he’d be willing to divorce her.

His thigh pressed against her again and she knew with sick revulsion that she was indulging a pipe dream. Crispin wouldn’t let her go until he’d had enough of her. And not even Hugo would be able to persuade him otherwise.