Chapter 28
RESCUE
Michael stood in the doorway and scanned the faces in Lady Sheffield’s drawing room. “It’s Hawthorne. I’m certain of it. I visited his home this morning and demanded he leave London, leave the country for that matter. But I’m afraid I pushed him too far. And now…And now he’s taken Lilly…”
Michael dropped heavily into an empty chair and put his head in his hands. “All I managed to do was enrage the man. When he saw Lilly leaving the park, he saw a way to get back at me.”
Sitting now, fatigue pulled at Michael’s body. His earlier adrenaline was giving way to hopeless exhaustion.
Where had they gone? Where would Hawthorne take her? He pictured her as she’d been that afternoon at London Hills Manor. Her hair spread around her on the ground as he’d gazed into her golden eyes. Her lips tilted up, smiling seductively at him.
He recalled the moment at the inn when he’d first heard her voice. He’d been unable to believe it was her. His mind had convinced him their love was dead, but his heart had known all along.
In fact, she’d possessed it since the moment he’d seen her standing in the foyer of the Willoughby ballroom. And she’d kept it all these years.
She’d been through so much already. Somehow, Lilly had survived an intolerable marriage for the sake of her family.
Out of respect for Glenda, she had observed the mourning period, pretending grief for a man who’d treated her abominably.
Her spirit had kept hope alive. She’d returned to London determined to do for her stepdaughter what everyone else had failed to do for her. Assure her happiness and peace.
He pictured her as she’d danced with him. Had it just been last evening? It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since he’d held her, guided her, and twirled her around in the Ravensdale’s ridiculously ornate ballroom.
Was she alive even? She had to be! Surely his heart would know if she’d left this earth.
He rubbed his hands over his eyes before facing the room’s inhabitants.
Lady Natalie looked meaningfully at Michael and then her father. Her father looked enraged.
Michael spoke softly, his voice sounding guttural. “I’m going after her.”
These were apparently not the words the earl had been expecting. “You bastard!” Ravensdale was on his feet in an instant, fists clenched at his sides. “I trusted you with my daughter, my only daughter!”
Lady Natalie jumped out of her chair and placed herself in front of her father.
“No, Papa! Please. I am the one who does not wish to marry Lord Cortland! Please, Father, please, let him go!” she begged.
Michael was surprised to see tears spilling down her face.
“Father, please understand, I cannot marry Cortland. I do not love him. Lilly needs him! Let him go!” Lady Ravensdale rose and wrapped her arms around her weeping daughter.
Natalie would have collapsed had her father not taken hold of her and guided her back to her seat. She wept softly.
“Enough, Broderick.” The countess spoke firmly to her husband. “Our children are not to be used as chattel in a business deal, or politics, or anything else.” She gently stroked her daughter’s hair and looked him in the eyes. “Enough.”
The earl knelt before his daughter. At that moment, he was something of a broken man.
Michael knew Ravensdale’s greatest priority in life had always been his wife and children.
With a fatherly tenderness not normally exhibited, the earl gently brushed Natalie’s hair from in front of her eyes.
“Sweeting? I thought this was what you wanted. I thought you were happy with the match.”
Lady Natalie brushed her hands at her eyes like a child.
“That’s because you were happy with it, Papa.
I so wanted to make you happy, but…I do not love Cortland and he does not love me, and I want what you and Mama have.
I have come to realize that marriage ought to be undertaken with much more than a daughter’s desire to please her father.
” She tucked her head onto her father’s shoulder and quietly wept some more.
Ravensdale looked over at Michael and gave him a helpless look. “My girl doesn’t wish to marry you, Cortland. Can we agree to destroy the betrothal contacts?” There was a hint of a threat in his voice as both men knew Michael deserved the blame for the dissolution of the betrothal.
But a gentleman could never cry off.
“We can,” Michael said, lifting his head up from his hands. “Please, Lady Natalie, accept my heartfelt apologies…”
Lady Natalie peeked out from her father’s arms to look over at him. The only two who could see her face were Cortland and Danbury. Her tears had magically vanished.
And then—the little minx—she winked at him! “I’m the one who is sorry, Your Grace.”
It was what they’d planned, but not this way.
Had she deliberately become hysterical for her father’s benefit?
He’d have to thank her later but was more restless than ever to be on his way to Maple Hall, Hawthorne’s estate.
It was where Michael had discovered his stolen carriage and team.
It made sense that Hawthorne would take Lilly there as well.
When he’d arrived at Lady Eleanor’s town house, he’d sent John to retrieve mounts for them to go after Hawthorne. They could travel faster that way.
John and Arty would both be riding with him.
He gave Natalie what he hoped looked like a grateful nod and then, unable to wait a moment longer, stood and moved toward the door.
“I’m leaving for Hawthorne’s estate as soon as John returns with the horses. My apologies, Ravensdale, Danbury, for missing the vote tomorrow.”
Lady Eleanor had pulled a bell to call for a maid. When the maid arrived, she directed her to pack some food and drinks in bags that would fit on a saddle. She must have been terrified, but the look she bestowed upon Michael said she trusted him to save her niece.
He hoped he was worthy of such faith.
Ravensdale went into the foyer with Michael. Putting one hand on his shoulder, he held out his other for Michael to shake.
Michael grasped it firmly.
“Don’t worry about the vote.” Ravensdale glanced back at Danbury with a grim determination. “We’ll take care of matters here.”
Danbury turned to Michael before responding. “Not if Cortland requires my assistance.” His eyes were sincere.
Michael shook his head. “I’ve got John and Arty traveling with me. You stay with Ravensdale and see what can be done when the call is made.” Just then, Jarvis appeared to inform them John had arrived. The maid ran in, curtsied, and handed him three saddlebags. He took them gratefully.
He would find her.
She would be alive. He had to believe this as he and his two servants, who had turned out to be as loyal as any of his friends, rode hell-bent for leather, to find and save his Lilly.
Just as he ought to have done years ago.
Lilly had thought the earl was dying before her eyes, but as quickly as the chest pains came, they seemed to cease. Although his hand remained upon his chest, his color returned, and he leaned back in his seat again.
“No more talking,” he ordered.
Lilly closed her eyes and continued picking at the knot the footman had tied. The sun had set, and the driver was forced to slow the carriage as darkness overtook them. She was glad for the horses, they had been pushed too hard.
As happy as she would have been to see Michael, she did not think he would come after her in truth. Not for the reasons she had told the earl. But because no one knew she had been taken—let alone that she was even with the earl.
Aunt Eleanor must be beside herself. Perhaps they assumed she’d simply decided to leave town and never return. Perhaps they believed she had childishly run away, for that’s what she’d wanted to do initially.
“Is my aunt truly ill? You were lying, were you not, when you told me she had fallen ill?” She ignored his instructions to remain silent.
The earl leaned his head back against the bench and observed the ceiling of the coach. “She is an old woman. She will die soon. We all die.”
“Oh, please! She is not truly ill though, is she?”
“For God’s sake, no, girl. Leave me in peace.”
That was something, anyway. Relieved by this knowledge, she again focused upon her current predicament. After so adamantly deciding she didn’t need a man in her life, she was already being tested. She must escape on her own. It was possible she had more reason to live than for herself.
Her courses were still absent. She’d never been late. Not after her father’s death, her mother’s death, or even when Michael had failed to return to England. Oh, yes, she had something to live for.
If she was going to become a mother, her duties began now. She must protect her life and that of the child she might be carrying. She needed to escape.
Ignoring the pain of the rope digging into her, she pulled relentlessly at the knot until it finally loosened, and she could wriggle her hands. Relief swam through her as she loosened the knot further.
But she kept her arms behind her back. She needed to be smart about this. The earl still possessed a gun, and she had nowhere to go. She could not throw herself from a moving carriage as that could harm the baby. If there was a baby.
She watched the earl from under her eyelashes. It was dark enough that he must believe her to be asleep. He winced occasionally and rubbed his chest with his right hand. He’d retrieved the pistol he’d dropped earlier and now held it loosely in his left.
His nose had stopped bleeding, but there were black crusts of blood dried on his upper lip. If he hadn’t been holding her captive, she might have felt sorry for him. Even so, she thought, the man was sick of the mind and probably deserved her pity.
But he was also a murderer. A dead man lay on the floor, blocking the door. Lilly couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Nausea threatened each time she remembered a corpse lay only inches from her feet. She could not dwell on that.