Chapter 11 #2
Masterson senior, occupied with writing a book on English law in his retirement, made himself equally as unavailable by retiring to his study during the day and dining alone in his bedchamber in the evenings.
Not even the presence of an earl occupying a guest bedchamber on the third floor of their modest London town house was enough to persuade either of the senior Mastersons to leave their state of self-imposed solitude.
Not that Nicholas could blame them. If he had a daughter or sister who had been kidnapped, he would no doubt feel just as emotionally heartsick as they did. Although he believed he would have made an effort to look for her rather than hide away in his study or bedchamber.
If it had been Julia who had been taken, then Nicholas knew he would have torn London apart looking for her.
Julia.
Dear God, how he longed for this to be over so that he could go to her and beg her to marry him. The waiting to do so was torturous.
He didn’t care what ghost she believed stood between them, as long as Julia became his wife. He would be happy to discuss, and hopefully dismiss, any and all that Julia believed stood between them once they were married.
He had thought his heart would break the morning she told him she could not marry him.
But with Susan Masterson’s kidnappers demanding Nicholas in exchange for the girl, he’d had no choice but to give the appearance of accepting Julia’s decision rather than allowing her to become embroiled any further in this hazardous situation.
As soon as it was over, he intended to find Julia and make love to her until she agreed to marry him.
But for now, he was forced to wait for Susan Masterson’s kidnappers to contact her brother.
The one positive thing to come out of this delay was that the skin discoloration and pain Nicholas had suffered from the carriage accident had mostly faded.
Giles Masterson was obviously his parents’ son, having also chosen to keep himself busy as they waited for the kidnappers to contact him.
He worked from home, with the assistance of the male clerk who arrived promptly at eight o’clock each morning, rather than Giles going daily into his offices in the City.
In sharp contrast, the only distraction Nicholas had was when one of the other seven members of Prinny’s private army sent information to him. The missives were delivered to Giles Masterson’s clerk, and he in turn passed them on to his employer, and then Giles gave them to Nicholas.
The information Nicholas had received from them so far had all been in the negative. Not one of them had yet been able to learn who the kidnappers were or where they were holding Susan prisoner.
On the third day, when Nicholas had been about to give up on this ruse and simply go home—or go insane from experiencing any more boredom in the Masterson household—another note was delivered to the house, this time by one of the homeless waifs roaming the London streets.
The letter was addressed to Giles Masterson. It instructed him to take Nicholas to the Chinese Bridge in St. James’s Park at midnight tonight, in readiness for exchanging him for Giles’s sister.
The contents of that letter told Nicholas that the kidnappers were, as they had hoped would be the case, well aware of his presence in the Mastersons’ home.
The delay in contacting Giles seemed to indicate they were now convinced Nicholas was indeed Giles Masterson’s prisoner, but had wanted to reassure themselves of that fact before contacting him again.
“I have to do this,” Masterson told him shakily when Nicholas looked up from reading the letter. “Please understand, I have no choice in the matter.”
Nicholas might have been going quietly insane from having nothing to do these past few days, but Giles appeared to have aged ten years in that same time as he waited for news of his sister.
His hair was constantly tousled, eyes bloodshot, his face deathly pale, and his clothes looked creased enough to have been slept in. Perhaps they had.
“This is what we have been waiting for,” Nicholas assured him eagerly. “Once I have informed my associates of these instructions—”
“No!” Masterson withdrew a small pistol that had been hidden in the waistband of his pantaloons beneath his waistcoat.
He now pointed that pistol at Nicholas. “You misunderstood what I meant when I apologized and said I had no choice. I meant that you will not be informing your friends of this progress, because I fully intend to go to the park at midnight tonight and hand you over to whoever is holding Susan captive.”
It was not what they had agreed upon. But Nicholas could see that the younger man was in earnest. “You have no guarantee they will not simply shoot you and take me rather than return Susan to you and your parents,” he pointed out gently.
He was not concerned for himself but for this man’s young sister. If she were still alive. Of which there was no guarantee. It had been almost a week since she was taken, after all.
“I will have more of a chance of a positive outcome if you are seen to be my prisoner.” Masterson took the same thin rope from the pocket of his waistcoat that had been used to bind Nicholas three days ago.
Causing Nicholas to question whether the young man had been carrying these items about with him ever since they returned to London. That he had been waiting for the kidnappers to contact him again so he could hand Nicholas over.
“Turn around and put your arms behind your back,” Masterson now instructed.
“Could you forgo the gag, if you please?” Nicholas encouraged. “My jaw is still somewhat bruised from the carriage accident in Surrey.”
“Do you promise not to cry out or alert anyone else to your plight?”
“Of course. If I wished to do that, I could have walked out of your home any time during the past three days,” he reminded.
The younger man studied him for several long seconds before giving a curt nod and then concentrating on securing Nicholas’s hands.
“You intended to betray me from the beginning,” Nicholas mused.
“Not at all. But the anguish I and my parents have suffered through this interminable waiting to be contacted again by the kidnappers has made this necessary. Every hour, every minute, has been spent fearing for my sister’s life.
Now that the kidnappers have finally contacted us, I must ask you to please do as I say.
” He waved the gun in Nicholas’s direction as incentive.
It actually wasn’t much of an incentive when Nicholas knew he could disarm the younger man any time he chose. But he also knew that the situation would look more plausible if Nicholas’s hands were visibly tied, as they had been when they’d first returned to London.
But if Masterson thought the two of them would be alone when they went to Regent’s Park this evening, then he was mistaken.
If the kidnappers had been watching the Mastersons’ house for three days, and Nicholas had every reason to believe they had, then the other members of Prinny’s private army had also been taking it in turns to do the same.
Nicholas had every reason to believe that several of his associates would follow them to St. James’s Park. That whoever was waiting for them would soon learn that Nicholas had powerful friends in very high places.