Chapter 26
The blurry world came clear to Rosalind again slowly as she woke. The first sensation she was aware of was the splitting pain of a headache.
She was well-familiar with such discomfort, but there was something different about this particular pain. It was muddled and wide-spread, and as she blinked awake she remembered the cloth that had been pressed firmly against her mouth. I have been drugged.
She tried to stay calm, even as her heart skittered with fear at the flood of memories coursing through her mind: the two men stopping her horse, the fight as she was dragged off her saddle, the image of Sir Percival looming above her.
She opened her eyes with a sharp intake of breath.
She was on a settee in a cold room she did not recognize. Her hands were bound tightly, and she could hear the murmur of deep voices around her. She fought the urge to cry out and protest, wanting to keep her wakefulness a secret as long as possible while she took in her surroundings.
She was a cottage of sorts, although it looked almost empty and quite unused. There was a fireplace, but no fire in the hearth to warm her.
The ground was unswept, and the rafters above bare.
There was a table in one corner and two chairs by the fireplace, but she could not make out any kitchen utensils or pots and pans.
This was an abandoned place. A place where no one would be expected to come for some time. A good place to hide a kidnapped woman.
“Ah, she is awake.”
Drake came into view, with the two strangers at his side.
The cottage was not large, and Rosalind realized with a start they had been speaking only a few paces behind where she lay.
It was impossible to assign him the name Sir Percival now—she had known, almost since the beginning, that it was a misnomer he had chosen for himself, but had allowed the name to cling to him as long as he played the part of a gentleman.
Now that she sat bound and terrified at his behest, she could no longer pretend that he was anything remotely gentlemanly. She looked up at him silently; defiantly.
“And she’s angry,” one of the two strange men said with a grin. “Look at the way her eyes flash. Pretty little thing, when she gets riled—is she not?”
“Hush, Bruno,” Drake said, his eyes still fashioned on Rosalind. He pulled one of the chairs from the fireplace over and sat in front of Rosalind, crossing one knee over the other and wrapping his hands calmly together in his lap.
He looked for all the world as he had the first time he visited her, dressed impeccably, drawling and fashionable.
If it weren’t for their dismal surroundings, Rosalind could have imagined him back in her drawing room trying to woo her hand in marriage.
She was not certain which image was more preferable.
“Miss Thorne, how are you feeling?”
Rosalind struggled up on one elbow. She did not fancy having a conversation of any sort from a prone position. The other stranger—the one not called Bruno—reached out to roughly assist her into a seated position. She looked down at her clothes and saw that the white muslin was muddy and disheveled.
Her bonnet was gone, and her long blond hair was loose and tangled around her shoulders.
Nevertheless, she pulled herself up as straight as she could manage under the circumstances and lifted her chin as she faced her attackers.
“I have been better,” she said coldly.
“As have I,” Drake said drily. “You should know, Miss Thorne, that you and your ragtag group of compatriots rather foiled a neat little plan I had set in place.” He raised his hand, indicating their dismal surroundings.
“It may surprise you to hear this, but I am not the sort of gentleman who usually finds himself resorting to extreme measures.”
“You are not a gentleman at all,” Rosalind retorted, “and I feel it incumbent upon me to point out that it is no real boast that you do not ‘usually’ resort to extreme measures. If you resort to kidnapping a woman and holding her against her will, I think your character is firmly in question, regardless of the frequency.”
Drake gave a slow sigh and rolled his eyes. “At least, in thwarting my marriage suit, you saved me this eternal pious behavior. It is nauseating after a time.”
“If my company makes you ill, feel free to remove yourself from it at once,” Rosalind said, forcing a calm smile. “I cannot say I will miss you in your absence.”
“I was originally sent to your little scrap of the world by a gentleman in London,” Drake said, continuing on without acknowledging this last barb. “He is a rather influential moneylender—”
“Gilford E. Stanley,” Rosalind interjected.
Drake looked taken aback for a moment. He cleared his throat, and continued.
“That is not a name you should use lightly, Miss Thorne. He is a rather dangerous man. Anyway, your stepbrother got himself rather embroiled with this man. Crewe has a knack for spending more money in a day than most men make in a year, and, the sum of it all is, he owes more than Thornefield is worth.”
Rosalind listened, taking it in. Adrian had guessed as much.
Drake continued. “You met Mrs. Vane, I know—she is indebted to the same gentleman. She and Crewe met each other in London and concocted a little scheme to get the money they needed with a small bit of manipulation. They sold it to Stanley with a little convincing, in the hopes that he would stay their public ruination. Stanley was intrigued, but sent me along as a sort of… insurance. I make certain things get done properly.”
“And what was ‘properly?’” Rosalind asked quietly.
“It was all to be resolved by Michaelmas—you, discredited, would hand Thornefield over to Crewe and he would in turn transfer it to Stanley. Mrs. Vane would have a portion of Marwood after her remarriage—” he stopped abruptly, apparently glimpsing the expression on Rosalind’s face.
“That, I thought, would be the simplest task. I cannot believe she bungled it. Even I knew, at the outskirts of London gossip at the time, that the viscount was in love with Seraphina Vane when she ran off with her new husband. How she managed to fail in wooing him back into her good graces is beyond me.”
“But she did fail,” Rosalind said. “And so did Edmund. And so did you, as a matter of fact.”
“Yes, we have been forced to improvise but, as you can see—I am rather adept at improvisation,” Drake leered in response.
“Yes, you should take to the stage,” Rosalind retorted sarcastically. “What is your plan, then? To hold me hostage here until you come up with another scrap of improvisation?”
“No, it is much more simple and brutish than that,” Drake said. He pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, holding them up so Rosalind could see them. “Here is a draft I have written up for you to copy. It acknowledges Mr. Crewe’s claim to the estate, and signs over full possession to him.”
Rosalind peered at it. “Why on earth do you think that I would sign such a thing?”
“Because until you do, this is where you will reside.” Drake nodded again to the cottage.
“It is a cold and lonely place for a woman by herself, and though I am sorry for the necessity of threats, I must confess that I have all the time in the world. Nothing on earth would compel me to return to my employer empty-handed, and I suspect your heroic defense of Thornefield will feel a little thin when the days of starvation and discomfort begin to pile one atop the other.”
Rosalind looked hard in Drake’s weasel eyes. “I have been a friend of great discomfort for years now, sir,” she snapped. “And I will not sign that paper.”
“Brave words are always prevalent at the beginning,” Drake said calmly, standing and laying the paper on the seat behind him. “But let me tell you, Miss Thorne, I always break my man in the end. I would rather use as little force as possible, as an honor to your feminine sensibilities.”
He smiled in a way that sent a chill up her spine and then gestured to the two strangers and walked behind Rosalind. She turned, and saw for the first time that there was a second room nearby.
Through it, she glimpsed a bed and a sitting chair before Drake closed the door behind him. So she was to be left alone with her thoughts and the paper, supposedly to reconsider her stubbornness.
Very well, I shall make the most of this time. Rosalind worked her hands against the rope, feeling it twist painfully behind her. They had not been loose with the knots, and the more she turned her wrists, the tighter the rope seemed to be.
She felt the sting of abrasion on her arm, and turned her attention to her feet.
At first, she was hopeful at the smaller rope used around her ankles, but after fighting with it for a few minutes she saw it was not only as tight as the rope at her wrists, but it was also fashioned to the settee to keep her from walking any distance away from the piece of furniture.
She paused to catch her breath, and then stood as carefully as she could to peer out the one dismal window above the table.
It was difficult to stand with her hands and legs pinioned—there was nothing to give her purchase or balance—but she managed to hold herself steady while she took in her surroundings.
There was not much to see. Outside was only dusky light, and a wood. The trees were clustered close around the cottage, and completely innocuous. They could have been any trees, in any wood. She had no idea how far she had been taken from her home, nor where she now sat.
She sank slowly back onto the settee, her heart sinking. If I die, Harry will be alone. She realized with a sickening start that, with Rosalind out of the picture, Harry wouldn’t be alone… He would be under Edmund’s control.
Then another thought flashed into her mind with stunning lucidity: she did not want to die here, because she had not yet told Adrian one true thing about how she really felt for him.
She had been careful and cautious at every turn, but for some time—longer than she cared to admit now that she recalled their each and every interaction—she had felt something…
No, now is not the time for vaguity… She had loved him. She did love him.
And now, what was to happen? Was she to perish in some out of the way place where nobody would find her for years, while he went on thinking she was just some friend in some neighborhood house who he was kind to once?
For some reason, the idea of Adrian not knowing the truth stung even more than her own fear for her life.
Suddenly, the door opened again and Drake emerged, alone, from the room. He walked over to her and looked down at her.
“I have been speaking with the lads, and they had rather a clever idea about you, Miss Thorne,” he said slowly, his eyes beady and dark.
“It began with Bruno, you may imagine. He wondered if the paper would even be necessary if you were simply to wait long enough here in silence. People will assume you are lost, or worse, and the property will be transferred to Crewe in your absence.”
He brushed his chin with his hand, musing calmly as though discussing the scores at a race. “But then I thought to myself—why the loose end at all? If Miss Thorne could disappear more… completely, then there will not be a threat to Crewe’s ownership, and therefore no threat to my employer’s.”
Rosalind swallowed hard. He had come to this revelation rather quicker than she had hoped. “It is not a small thing to kill a lady,” she said quietly. “I would not be so sure you are prepared to stoop to such depths.”
“Oh, Miss Thorne,” he said, a wicked smile curling his lips. “You have no idea the depths with which I am intimately acquainted.”
Suddenly, outside, there came the unmistakable report of a pistol.