Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Mr. Masterson’s appearance and clothing were every bit as bedraggled as Hutchings had said they were.
Dirt streaked the lawyer’s pale and gaunt features, his hat was absent, and his hair was in disarray. The dark material of his suit looked to be covered in dried mud.
He was nursing a glass of brandy, poured from the decanter sitting on the side table, as he paced in front of the fire. No doubt, as he appeared to be shaking, he was trying to warm himself to stop his hands from trembling.
He ceased his pacing the moment the earl and countess, the marquis and marchioness, along with Amanda and Julia, entered the library. “Oh, thank God,” he spoke agitatedly. “Please, you must send men immediately to release and rescue the Earl of Wolfingham!”
“First, we must know if you are injured from the accident, Mr. Masterson,” the marchioness said.
He shook his head. “I managed to jump from the carriage before it started to roll down the hillside.”
Which accounted for the muddied state of his clothes.
“Rescue the earl from where or what?” Julia was still totally frustrated with the little sense any of them had been able to make of what Hutchings had told them of this situation so far.
“And why on earth would he need to be released first?” Amanda then pressed.
“Darlings, could you please both be silent while your fathers question Mr. Masterson?” The Countess bestowed a warm and encouraging smile upon the agitated lawyer. “I do not believe our guest is in any condition at the moment to tolerate being questioned by numerous different people.”
Amanda looked down at her feet. “Sorry, Aunt.”
“Sorry, Mama.” Julia knew that what really mattered right now was to ascertain Wolfingham’s whereabouts so that he might be “released and rescued.”
Although she still had absolutely no idea what could be meant by that.
Or why she cared so much.
Did she care?
Strangely, yes, she did.
Perhaps, despite her heated words to him before, because Nicholas Harding was Freddie’s brother and Freddie had worshipped him?
No.
Julia had never believed in lying to oneself. It seemed to her to be the height of self-delusion.
Which was why she could now acknowledge that perhaps Freddie’s feelings for his brother were a part of the reason for her concern for Wolfingham, but that the other part felt far more personal.
* * *
If Nicholas hadn’t managed to partly kick out a wooden panel at one end of the dark and airless box he was locked in, then he believed he might have suffocated long before the carriage reached its final destination.
As it was, he had managed to slightly loosen some nails in the panel closest to his booted feet. That allowed him to ease the wood slightly to one side by that same booted foot.
He was immediately able to breathe in huge gulps of fresh air.
He could not dislodge the piece of wood completely, despite further exertions, but the movement had also loosened the binding about his ankles, allowing him to pull at them until he could push it away completely.
It would have been far better to release the bindings about his hands so that he could also remove the gag, but he would work with what he had.
The release of the binding about his ankles allowed him to wriggle in the confined space until he was able to bend his leg up so that his foot reached to where his hands were tied.
On the third attempt, he finally managed to remove the knife from its hiding place in a sheath attached to the side of his ankle before turning that blade and trying to cut at the rope about his wrists.
He lost the sawing movement necessary several times, allowing the knife to slip and slice into the flesh of his arm. The flow of blood from the cut added to the slickness of the knife handle, making it even more difficult to find purchase.
At the very moment he felt some give in the tautness of the bindings, allowing him to pull his wrists apart, he heard a shout from above him, no doubt from the groom standing on the box.
Then another shout, possibly from the driver at the front with the horses, before the carriage began to lurch to one side.
Nicholas pulled his hands free as the carriage gave a deeper lurch before tipping completely to one side, followed by the vehicle sliding and then rolling down what Nicholas could only think must be an embankment of some kind.
Over and over it rolled, throwing Nicholas about in the confines of his small prison despite now having the use of his hands. He hit his head time after time as the vehicle rolled. Indeed, every part of him felt battered and bruised by the time the vehicle finally came to a shuddering halt.
Nicholas’s insides had rolled with it, and it was with some relief that he managed to pull down the gag seconds before the contents of his stomach surged up and spilled out into the confined space.
Bloodied and now covered in his own vomit, Nicholas allowed himself to feel a few seconds of gratitude that he was at least still alive.
Although how long that state would continue depended upon the people who had put him here and what their plans were for him now that things had gone awry by the carriage crashing.
He was sure their original intention had been to remove him from Surrey in such a way that no one would be any the wiser as to where he had gone.
Nicholas had some idea about who might wish for him to disappear. But he doubted they had wished that to happen in a carriage accident.
No, he believed the people responsible for his abduction would much rather have him as their prisoner, to torture information from him before disposing of his body, than to have him be accidentally killed in a carriage accident before they were able to question him.
They would be wasting their time, of course. Nicholas might give the impression of living a dissolute life, but in truth, he was physically very fit and mentally unbreakable.
As were all the members of the Prince Regent’s private army.
* * *
“What was Wolfingham even doing in your carriage with you?” Julia now demanded of the lawyer, her voice perhaps a little sharper than she had intended after realizing she cared if Wolfingham had been harmed in some way.
“I did not see him sitting inside with you when you left here earlier,” she recalled suspiciously.
Mr. Masterson turned his gaze from hers. “I did not know he was there either until after the carriage had crashed.”
“How could you not know he was inside the carriage with you?” Julia scoffed.
“Because he was not inside the carriage with me.”
“Then where was he?” She spoke her irritation with this man’s unhelpful answers.
“He had been locked in the— Please, you have to understand,” he pleaded. “These men have taken my sister. She is only fourteen. A child still. And those men—those men threatened to—”
“Your sister has been kidnapped?” Julia gasped.
Matherson swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“When?”
“Shortly before I departed London to come here.” He shuddered.
“As far as our family was aware, Susan was at a piano lesson, taken there by her maid, but then while she was away, a letter was delivered to me. It said they had taken Susan as she left her lesson to come home. That the maid was dead. That—that they would do terrible things to Susan before killing her too if I did not do as they instructed.”
“But why?” Julia demanded to know. “What possible reason could anyone have for doing such a heinous thing? And what does any of this have to do with Wolfingham?” She really was completely at a loss to understand that part of this rambling explanation.
The lawyer frowned. “The letter stated that if I wanted my sister to be released unharmed, I must be the one to come to Foxburgh Manor for the reading of the will. Not my father, who was Lady Roxburgh’s actual lawyer, but me.
They said they would provide the carriage to bring me here, along with the driver and groom, and that I was just to keep my mouth shut and do as I was told. ”
“So that rickety old carriage was not yours at all,” Amanda observed with some relief.
“I really do not think the age, or otherwise, of the carriage I arrived and departed in is of the least significance when my sister is obviously in danger,” Giles Masterson snapped.
Amanda’s cheeks blazed with color at the reprimand. “No, of course not.”
“What else did they say?” Julia’s mother prompted gently.
“That once we had arrived in Surrey, I had only to play my part as a guest and read out Lady Roxburgh’s will when the time came, and that they would take care of the rest of what needed to be done.”
“And what else was that?” Amanda, never one to be silent for long, now looked as perplexed as Julia felt.
“They did not tell me,” the young lawyer admitted shakily.
“But you now know those plans involved the Earl of Wolfingham?” the marquis questioned.
“Yes.”
“You really are not being very helpful, Mr. Masterson.” Julia frowned her increasing frustration with the man. “You said Wolfingham was not inside the carriage with you when you left, so where was he?”
“The carriage rolled over several times on its way down the embankment, and when I had managed to slide down the hill, I set about searching for the driver and groom.” He grimaced.
“Unfortunately, when I did find them, they were both dead. The driver of a broken neck and the groom having been crushed beneath the wheel—”
“Yes, yes, we will take your word that they are both deceased,” the marquis cut in briskly. “They were, after all, part of the same group of men who had previously kidnapped your sister, killed her maid, and now intended to kidnap an earl. Wolfingham…” he reminded pointedly.