Читать книгу My Favorite Marquess - Alexandra Bassett - Страница 8

As the carriage and four trundled through inky darkness over the rutted moors of Cornwall, Violet thought, and not for the first time, that this journey had stretched on too long. Far too long. Agonizingly long. They were to have reached Trembledown by nightfall, but the driver, Hal, seemed to have misjudged the distance. Now the inhabitants of the carriage—herself, her manservant Peabody, and her cousin Henrietta Halsop—were all cold, hungry, and on edge.

Violet, of course, was managing to control her own travel fatigue in an exemplary fashion. (True, she had brought Hennie to tears by calling her a tiresome magpie, but that had been a full hour ago.) Peabody and Hennie, unfortunately, were showing no such restraint.

“It’s so frightfully dark out!” cried Henrietta, releasing one of the dramatic moans that now seemed to come out of her with the regularity of the cuckooing of a Swiss clock. “Woe betide us all if we should be overtaken by Robert the Brute on this black night!”

Exhibiting heroic courtesy, Violet turned toward the curtain of the carriage’s window so her cousin would not witness the extravagant rolling of her eyes. Hennie had been prattling on about this Robert the Brute character since they had left the last posting inn, a horrid little hole with no private parlors. There Hennie had tended to linger whilst eavesdropping on the conversation of the uncouth characters milling about. No doubt tales of this smuggler were greatly exaggerated for the benefit of an impressionable spinster. But such was the gullibility of her cousin.

Yes, it was as dark as pitch, and the fact that the road was riddled with pits and stones did nothing to soothe anyone’s nerves inside the carriage. But smugglers? Really! Violet feared the only thing in danger of being overtaken this evening was what was left of Hennie’s feeble brain.

Until recently, Hennie had resided with her great-aunt Matilda, a querulous woman who had been the greatest nipcheese of Yorkshire. When the old lady died shortly before Christmas, the family discovered that she had amassed a sizable fortune in the funds. While the house that they occupied had been entailed to her husband’s great-nephew, the majority of the money went to Hennie. Some said that Matilda had only so favored Hennie to spite the nephew who, having no notion that a fortune was in the offing, had failed to ever once visit or even so much as write Matilda since her husband’s death.

Thus it was that the heretofore penniless spinster, who was fast approaching forty, while currently homeless, need never worry about finances again if she was careful. Hennie was so pathetically grateful that she had ordered an extensive mourning wardrobe and planned to spend the entire year in unrelieved black—half-mourning was not good enough for such a benefactress, Hennie was fond of claiming.

As the coach hit another pothole, Peabody braced himself on the edge of the seat. Even in the darkness, Violet could make out his bulging eyes. “Did you hear that?” he quavered.

“What?” Hennie went rigid. “Was that a gunshot?”

“No—a different sound…more horrible…like that of breaking china.” Peabody’s voice cracked. “Yes, I’m sure of it. The Limoges will be all in shatters by the time we arrive at Trembledown!”

Since the china had been scrupulously wrapped by Peabody himself, crated, and securely lashed on top of the carriage, it stretched credulity to think that one could have actually heard it breaking from where they were sitting. Violet pointed this out.

“But the road is so ill kept!” Peabody said.

“And so dark!” Hennie echoed.

Hennie and Peabody were united in their disgust with the conditions of their ride through Cornwall. From their complaints, you would think that Violet was hauling them across England by donkey cart rather than in the relative comfort of her father’s well-sprung traveling coach.

“I had not reckoned on what punishment the china would have to withstand,” Peabody lamented.

“Or what dangers we might have to withstand at the dread hands of Robert the Brute!”

Just then, Peabody gasped.

“What is it?” Henrietta cried, startled.

The manservant collapsed, clasping his hands to his head as if he were suffering the agonies of the damned.

Violet feared he was having an attack of apoplexy. “What is the matter?”

“The soup tureen!” he wailed.

Violet stared at the agonized figure with waning forbearance. “Surely you cannot tell exactly what piece of china you imagine to be broken. Really, Peabody!”

“No, it is not broken.” He lifted his head up with resignation, like a schoolboy ready to receive his punishment. “I—” He released a shuddering breath before confessing, “I forgot to pack it!”

Violet absorbed this information with astonishing equanimity. Perhaps at some point in her life such news would have thrown her into peevish displeasure. (In fact, at any point in her life before she had begun this wearisome voyage it would have.) But now she rated such a triviality as unimportant.

The only important thing was getting out of this blasted carriage.

“No matter,” she said, trying to reassure Peabody.

Peabody mistook her indifference for remonstrance. “You see, it wasn’t in the display cabinet, but in the cupboard. Things were at such sixes and sevens when all the packing was occurring…It was all so hurried, with your making the hasty plan for this trip…Please forgive me…There was so much to tend to…And then at the last minute we were forced to make room for the harp.”

Hennie, who was sensitive on this issue, looked as if she were under attack. “I’m sure I never forced anyone to allow me to bring my harp. That I would never do. I merely pointed out that since I do feel that I am being of service by accompanying Violet on her little adventure and since my pleasures are so few…” She swallowed. “But of course I know I am lucky to have been asked. After all, I am nothing but a homeless spinster. I thought that if my harp could provide a few moments of enjoyment for us, it would be a partial repayment of the debt I owe Violet for the honor she does me by consenting to let me join her household.”

Violet gritted her teeth—after all, Hennie could now afford an establishment of her own, but Hennie had expressed horror at the idea of herself, an unmarried lady, living alone. “It is I who am grateful to you for accompanying me, Hen. And as to your harp”—which, when plucked by Hennie, was as effective an instrument of torture as anything Torquemada had to work with—“it was no bother at all to bring it.”

Actually, it had caused a great deal of trouble, and explained the presence of Peabody, who would normally be riding in the baggage coach with Violet’s maid, Lettie. Hennie had objected as vociferously as she was able to the harp’s being secured to the top of the carriage. Something about its tone being ruined. Violet had never been present when anything approaching a pleasing tone had ever escaped that wretched instrument, so she was skeptical of this claim. Nevertheless, Hennie was adamant, and there had been nothing for it but to place the harp inside the baggage carriage, which barely left room for Lettie. That Peabody would suffer to ride in such discomfort was out of the question.

Violet secretly hoped that the evil lyre would meet with an unfortunate accident as it was being unloaded from the baggage carriage, which, due to a broken wheel, was now almost a day behind them.

“Nevertheless,” Peabody said, “the harp did rather confuse matters at the last minute. And that is how the soup tureen came to be left in the cabinet.”

“I said it does not matter, Peabody.”

“But, madame, what shall we do?”

“Do?” she snapped, finally reaching the frayed end of her last nerve. “We shall drink soup directly from the pot if we have to! Who cares? At this rate I shall count ourselves lucky if we ever get close enough to a hearth to have soup served to us in any container!”

“Indeed!” Hennie couldn’t help injecting fretfully. “Especially with Robert the Brute about. They say he has waylaid carriages such as this one before!”

“Enough.” Violet clapped her hands like one of her tiresome old governesses. “I will hear no more of crockery and cutthroats.”

Hennie nearly fainted. “Do you think he would cut our throats?”

Violet attempted to stifle her cousin’s growing hysteria with a glare that could have cut through stone.

Difficult as it was for Violet to believe now, when she had embarked on this trip a week ago, she had been grateful to have these two accompanying her. Especially Peabody, who was her father’s butler at their home, Peacock Hall, in Yorkshire. Normally the butler would be considered indispensable to her father, but this spring Sir Harlan had decided to travel to Italy. He explained his newfound mania for travel by saying that he had secretly longed to go to the continent for years, a desire now made possible because Napoleon was confined to Elba. But Violet suspected that his sudden wanderlust had more to do with his youngest daughter Sophy’s first Season.

Sophy, a man-mad youth, was now loose in London—a town brimming with Corinthians, dandies, rakes, and all manner of other males, both suitable and unsuitable. Violet feared her sister would naturally lean toward the latter. No doubt contemplating the potential havoc his youngest was likely to wreak on the capital accounted for their father’s sudden yearning for foreign soil.

Violet only hoped (though rather doubted) that their aunt Augusta was up to the demanding task of chaperoning such a minx.

In fact, she feared that the two of them together would just result in twice the mischief. That was one of the reasons she had so easily relinquished her plan to accompany Sophy to London and share the chaperone duties with Aunt Augusta. Chief among the other reasons was the fact that she was not quite prepared to be seen as a chaperone, the older sister (emphasis on old ). She was not yet twenty-eight, and while that could no longer be considered the first bloom of youth, she hadn’t been able to contemplate with indifference the experience of being set to the side at Almack’s like that institution’s notoriously stale cakes.

Then had come her correspondence with the Marquess of St. Just.

That top-lofty toad’s snide remarks angered her so, nothing would have induced her to come within fifty miles of London while the insufferable creature was there. Treating her as if she were some sort of social barnacle! Indeed, it had made her want to hurry her departure to Cornwall to take care of business while she had reason to believe he was not in this area.

If she were of a charitable mind, and less cold and fatigued, she might have thanked the irritating marquess. His correspondence had started a plan spinning in her brain. After being cast out by the Treachers, she had been at loose ends, unsure of her future, wasting away her life on her father’s estate in Yorkshire.

This had been especially brought home to her last summer when her other sister, Abigail, had managed to make a happier marriage than Violet had ever supposed was possible for the rather plain, reclusive, bookish spinster. But it turned out Abby hadn’t been wasting her time under their father’s roof. Instead she had secretly been penning successful gothic novels under the pseudonym Georgina Harcourt. Violet had never seen their father so impressed as when he had discovered the secret. And on top of that, Abby had managed to win the heart of the only semi-eligible bachelor in the area. Not that Violet herself would have considered marrying Nathan Cantrell for one moment, but she had to admit that it looked to be a very good match for Abby, and the couple obviously doted on each other. Quite bourgeois, but rather sweet.

The whole episode made Violet realize that since Percy’s death she had been frittering away her best years instead of making a new life of her own choosing. Now, thanks in part to the odious marquess, she saw a path to self-sufficiency. She would see to Trembledown’s repairs, have the estate appraised by a reputable third party, and then offer it for sale. With the proceeds she could set up her own household in a more pleasant part of the world.

Once she would have set her sights on London, but not now. She had finished with attempting to break into the haute ton of London. Perhaps she would try Bath. If she shared a household with the newly well-off Hennie, they should be able to acquire a very nice accommodation in that quaint town.

Hennie was already eager to go there because Imogene Philbrick, an old school friend, lived in that city. Violet shuddered to think what that woman—who had been described by Hennie as “Not quite as outgoing as I”—could possibly be like. Violet had no intention of joining a tiresome band of tea-drinking, needle-working women; yet there was no reason that they could not share expenses and largely go their separate social ways. With the sale of the house in Cornwall, she would have enough money to create an impression of lavish gentility that she rated necessary for success in Bath.

As she eyed her cousin’s ensemble, she noticed that her cousin’s petticoats were showing. Typical of the rather untidy Henrietta, Violet thought. Then, narrowing her eyes, she squinted to make out the color. Good heavens! Hennie had even procured black undergarments!

“I was just remembering some more of the conversation I overheard at the inn,” Hennie informed them. “It’s said that Robert the Brute is horribly disfigured! That’s why he wears a mask.”

Clearly, the smuggler had lodged in her brain.

Peabody, always interested in fashion, was unwillingly drawn in. “Always?”

“Yes, and no one, not even his most trusted associates, knows his identity. For no one who looks on his visage is allowed to live, they say!”

“Has he killed many men?” Peabody asked.

“Oh my, yes! Hundreds, according to the innkeeper at the last stop. That kind man was most concerned that we make it to Trembledown before nightfall, lest we fall into the blackguard’s hands!” Hennie gazed anxiously out the window, though by now there was nothing to be seen but blackness. Clearly, they had failed to follow the innkeeper’s advice and were, therefore, doomed.

“We must trust Hal hasn’t taken a wrong turn and gotten us hopelessly lost. I am sure it would be easy to do so on these terrible roads,” Peabody said, bringing the conversation back to his favorite lament.

“I can’t see that the state of the roads has anything to do with the direction we are heading,” Violet said.

All the same, she was annoyed that they were wandering in the dark down an unknown road, well past dinnertime. She was famished, and heaven only knew what awaited them at Trembledown. She had written the caretaker, a man by the name of Barnabas Monk, in advance of their arrival, but from his terse, barely literate reply, it sounded as if the house was not properly staffed.

“That’s just my point, my dear,” Hennie said. “Who can tell where we are headed in this darkness? There is no moon at all tonight. Which is when the smugglers are most active, as anyone knows!”

“I had no idea you had become the authority on Cornish smuggling.”

Violet’s ribbing was lost on Hennie. “I felt it my duty to listen with courtesy to the innkeeper after you had administered such a snub.”

“I would hardly call it a snub to demand some service,” Violet said. “That is his business, after all. If he wants to spend his days spreading tales, let him become a town crier instead of innkeeper.”

What Hennie’s response to this might have been was cut off by the sound of a loud boom and the whinnying of horses as the carriage came to a jarring halt. Violet was thrown from the seat and landed on the floor with her skirts around her waist, revealing a shocking amount of leg that she was helpless at first to wrestle back under her garments.

Just as Hennie and Peabody were reaching down to assist her, the door to the carriage was thrown open.

Expecting to see her coachman, Violet began remonstrating. “Really, Hal, what is the problem? I am going to be black and blue tomorrow and I have torn a new pair of stockings!”

“I regret the damage, milady.”

The gruff, sarcastic voice, barely intelligible through a thick Cornish accent and attended by a mocking bow, was not that of the faithful old Wingate groom. Violet looked up and felt her jaw go slack. The carriage’s exterior lamps clearly showed the person leaning into the carriage to be a giant beast of a man—tall and unkempt—with a fiendish leer on his horrid mouth.

“Seldom ’ave I seen a more worthy set of gams encased by France’s finest silk.” He ogled the leg once more and then looked into Violet’s face.

Another moan fluttered out of Hennie, and Peabody’s audible gulp very nearly shook the carriage. Violet managed to remain silent, though she felt herself drawing back against the seat and a deep trembling begin in the marrow of her bones. Their intruder’s scruffy boots, dirty buckskins, and lamentable coat alone would have been enough to cause her to recoil. Likewise, the shining black barrel of the pistol that was pointed at her would have excused the swooning sensation in her head. But, amazingly, these things she noted only with the briefest horror. Indeed, they seemed trivial next to the mask that was covering some half of the stranger’s face.

Good heavens! Could it be…?

“Robert the Brute.” Hennie and Peabody breathed together.

The man swept off his hat and treated them all to another mocking bow. His disguise gave him the appearance of a sinister masquerader. “At your service.” He stepped into the carriage and slammed the door closed after he had bellowed at the driver to get moving.

“Remember!” he shouted. “My pistol is trained on your charges!”

He grasped a gaping Violet and yanked her onto the seat next to him. Across from them, Hennie and Peabody were clinging to each other, quaking.

The jolt she received on hitting the seat shook Violet out of her momentary stupor. What was going on here? “Just what do you think you are doing in my carriage? Get out at once!” She leaned to the window to shout for Old Hal to pull over but felt her arm wrenched by the intruder. She winced.

When he spoke, his horrible growl had an acid edge of formality. “Sorry to trouble you, Highness, but recent events have made it necessary for me to depart this vicinity in a bloody hurry.”

Hennie, who had had practice deciphering both the Cornish accent and the ways of smugglers at the inn, assessed the situation more quickly than the rest of them. “Excise men?” she asked breathlessly, flaunting her newly acquired expertise.

The man smiled at the older woman’s knowledgeable guess. “Just so, ma’am. I am afraid I parted ways from my horse, and the tidesmen were closing in on me. Imagine my relief to see your carriage lumbering over the hill!”

“Oh yes! That was very fortunate indeed.” In response to Violet’s dagger stare, Hennie added quickly, “Fortunate for you, that is.”

But Violet could tell she was inordinately pleased to have guessed right about the excise men.

“Fine,” Violet said. “We have traveled some way now, so perhaps you wouldn’t mind removing your person from my carriage?”

He shook his head, his wolfish teeth glinting in the dark. “Not so fast, Highness. Unless I miss my guess, this coach is liable to be stopped at any minute by people searching for me. Naturally, I expect you to deny seeing me.”

“Of course we will,” Peabody assured him. “Anything you say, Mr…. Brute.”

“Yes, it would never occur to us to do our civic duty by revealing your dastardly whereabouts to the rightful authorities,” Hennie added.

Just then the carriage began to slow speed and the three hostages exchanged fearful glances. “Remember, not a word about my presence, or the consequences could be unpleasant.” The Brute snatched Peabody’s lap rug and threw it over himself as he placed himself on the floor at Violet’s feet. His head rested on her lap and his arms came around her waist.

“Get your filthy hands off me!” Violet exclaimed. She pushed ineffectually against the distressingly muscular arm encircling her waist, but she desisted the moment the muzzle of his gun pressed into her right rib cage. Her heart, which in the first shocking moments of the carriage being overtaken had seemed to stop beating altogether, now raced uncontrollably. Was he just holding them captive to hide from the government men? Surely. If they did as he said, he would have to let them go.

Wouldn’t he?

“Now remember, I have no desire to hurt the lady, but I will if necessary,” the man growled from his hiding place. Feeling his hot breath against her leg made nausea rise up in Violet’s throat.

How could this be happening? Would he really kill her?

“Oh, Violet! You are certain to be Robert the Brute’s latest victim!” Hennie whispered in a horror-stricken voice.

“Shh!” Violet hissed, annoyed that her cousin’s words had exactly mirrored her own thoughts.

The carriage was at a complete standstill, and they could hear voices consulting with Hal. Then there was a knock on the door, and a young man in uniform appeared. The lantern he shined inside the carriage made them squint like mice whose nest had been disturbed. God knew how they must have appeared to the man. Violet could hardly stand to look at the pale, stricken faces of her companions for fear of breaking down herself.

The officer, however, seemed to sense nothing amiss. He sent them a genial bow. “I am Captain Smythe, ma’am. I am sorry to bother you ladies, but a rather serious criminal has been spotted in the area. I was wondering if you had noticed anything outside your window that struck you as unusual this evening.”

“No, sir!” they all chimed together.

“We certainly have not seen Robert the Brute!” Hennie assured him loudly.

The gun pressed more tightly into Violet’s flesh. In response, she gave her cousin a swift kick.

Hennie bleated.

Captain Smythe frowned. “Robert the Brute?”

Nervous laughter burbled out of Hennie. “Did I say that name? Oh, well…I-I just assumed that anyone depraved enough to stop our coach would be a master criminal.” She squeaked, “Not that anyone did stop our coach, of course. And not that I ever have personally laid eyes on the man. Heavens, no!”

The captain eyed her steadily. “You might thank your stars for that, miss. There’s no greater villain about on these moors than the Brute.”

A keening moan caught in Hennie’s throat.

Feeling the hard iron pressing against her ribs, Violet hastened to add, perhaps too brightly, “My cousin was given an earful of your local lore at the last posting house. She has quite an active imagination.”

“I see,” the captain said slowly.

“Yes, indeed,” Hennie assured him. “Naturally I have no personal knowledge of what that half mask he wears looks like…or the way his eyes gleam evilly from it.”

Violet hitched her throat in warning.

“Not but that he mightn’t be perfectly charming if he were dressed properly and not so terribly disfigured,” Hennie went on. “I always think tall men look so distinguished, don’t you, Captain?”

The captain actually seemed to be pondering the question. “As to that…”

“Not that any of us have personal knowledge of the man’s height,” Peabody interrupted, giving Hennie a pinch.

“No!” Hennie agreed. “Or anything else about him, for that matter.”

“As my cousin says, Officer,” Violet said, cutting her cousin off before she got them all killed, “we have seen nothing this evening, and we are anxious to reach home.”

The soldier turned from looking mistrustfully at Hennie and held up his lantern a little higher as he focused on Violet. She responded by smiling brightly, hoping she did not appear half as petrified as she felt.

The officer returned her smile and leaned toward her with just the slightest hint of flirtation. “Where have you come from?”

“Yorkshire.”

She felt the arms around her waist tighten and prayed that the officer could not see the trickle of sweat gathering on her brow.

Smythe seemed impressed. “That is a long way. I’m sorry you are not able to see our countryside at its best at the moment.” He laughed. “I daresay you can’t see it at all!”

The three of them chimed in with nervous laughter.

“It is a dreadful evening, is it not?” she asked him. “So cold and damp! I don’t know how you brave men endure it night after night.”

The officer positively glowed.

Violet batted her eyes at the man and asked breathlessly, “Would it be all right for us to proceed now? I am sure you understand our desire to seek the fires of home.”

“Of course, no trouble at all, miss. I am only sorry that I have had to delay you this evening. If you will just provide me with your name and direction you can be on your way.”

“I am Violet Treacher. This is my cousin Henrietta Halsop, and we are on our way to my late husband’s estate of Trembledown.”

The villain’s grasp on her tightened, and she had to work hard not to let panic show in her face. Was she not supposed to tell the officer her name, either? If only Smythe would leave!

But at the same time, the thought of his leaving caused another panic to sweep through her. What if he left and the smuggler killed them all? There was no telling…

“I heard that the new mistress was expected any day now,” Smythe replied with agonizing casualness. “Everyone in Widgelyn Cross is looking forward to meeting you. Trembledown has been uninhabited a long time. Stirred quite a bit of interest when it came out ’twas a lady was to take over the property, as you might imagine. Rather unusual, that.”

Violet smiled tightly. Couldn’t the fool man see that this was not a time for discussion of freehold property?

“But I dare say the place could use a lady’s touch after all these years. You’ll be very welcome in Widgelyn Cross, I’m sure.”

“It is nice of you to say so,” she said, her heart in her throat. “My cousin and I are looking forward to making the acquaintance of local society.” Could she really be sitting with a gun trained on her person as she made such ladylike, and such inane, small talk?

“I only hope that we shall actually be in the position to meet local society!” Hennie worried aloud.

Fortunately, Captain Smythe was no longer paying much attention to Hennie. He only had eyes for Violet…but could he not see the desperation in her face?

“Oh, there’s not a doubt of it, ma’am,” he said. “Everyone is very friendly here. I myself am stationed in the village quite nearby. “He looked at Violet hopefully. “I hope that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again soon.”

The cold steel bit harder into her skin.

“Th-that would be lovely.” Violet chirped. “But now, I am sure you will understand my hurry…”

“Certainly.” The man looked disappointed to have their tête-à-tête brought to a conclusion, but he finally stood back and slammed the door of the carriage shut.

Old Hal immediately whipped the horses, and they were off.

Gun or no gun, Violet grabbed the smuggler’s hand, which had come to rest just under her bosom (not by accident, she would wager), and gave him a shove. She yanked the lap robe away from him. “There, you are safe. Now kindly get away from me, you cretin!”

The man laughed and gave her waist a last, lingering squeeze before getting up and settling on the seat next to her. His gun, she could not help noticing, remained trained on her.

“Put that thing away before you hurt someone. There is surely no need for it now that you have escaped the dreaded excise men.”

The man grinned and, quite surprisingly, did as she asked, tucking the weapon back into his jacket. “I must congratulate you on ridding us of that pesky ass, Mrs. Treacher.” He seemed to take great amusement in her name.

“Yes, indeed, Violet,” Hennie piped up. “You behaved wonderfully. You may not have noticed, but I was just the teensiest bit nervous.”

Robert the Brute sneered. “Were you now?”

Hennie nodded. “At one point I was almost afraid that I had said too much!”

“Impossible!” the Brute said with broad sarcasm. “The soul of discretion, you were.”

Violet asked sweetly, “And now, sir, where may we drop you?”

“Oh, just a few miles up the road. “The Brute winked at her. At least it looked like a wink; it was hard to be sure with that mask.

Those few miles seemed to take a lifetime. For the first time in over a week of travel, Peabody and Hennie were both blessedly silent. I should have picked up a fugitive days ago, Violet told herself with rising hysteria.

The Brute continued to stare at her as the carriage rattled along, until Violet thought she might scream. Those eyes, that leer, that mask! Not to mention the sheer bulk of him. It was affecting her strangely, making her flush. It had been so long since she had…well, bodily contact…with a man. And never had any person of the opposite sex looked at her with such frank interest.

Finally, when Violet thought she could take the smuggler’s grinning presence not a moment longer, the man banged on the roof for Old Hal to halt.

After he descended from the carriage, he took Violet’s hand as if to kiss it good-bye. Violet was so relieved at this sign of his departure that she made no protest, but then he tugged strongly on her arm and had her to her feet. When she resisted, he reached over and lifted her bodily from the carriage. A sharp cry escaped her lips, and the carriage’s other inhabitants squawked in protest. Peabody lunged and grabbed her sleeve, so that for a moment there was the briefest tug-of-war between the two men, with Violet playing the role of rope.

The Brute won, and held her before him like a cumbersome trophy.

“Just what do you think you are doing?” Violet demanded.

“Taking you with me as insurance, you might say.”

As the words sank in, Violet went cold with fear. “Y-you can’t seriously be planning to abduct me?”

“Can I not, Mrs. Treacher?” He then dumped her to the ground and barked at Peabody. “You there, grab that hat with the black veiling and come here.”

Peabody appealed to Violet. At her nod, he reluctantly approached them.

“Tear the veil off the hat and tie it around your mistress’s hands. I don’t want any trouble from her.”

“I am so sorry, ma’am,” Peabody said as he ripped at the hat. At the rending sound, Hennie began to weep—she had been quite proud of this particular bonnet. Peabody then tied Violet’s hands together—much too tightly, Violet thought crossly. But then, Peabody had always been a stickler for following directions to the letter.

“Now get back into the carriage,” the Brute barked at Peabody. “If you want to see your mistress again alive, you will head directly for Trembledown and await her there. Without notifying the authorities. If all goes well this evening, she will be returned to you in a few hours.”

Hours? Just the past thirty minutes seemed to have crawled by like months. How was she ever to survive hours with this ruffian?

Then again, what choice did she have?

Peabody and Old Hal looked mutinous at these strictures and Violet feared that they would head straight back toward the government men. She had no doubt that in that case the man would be as good as his word and kill her.

Robert the Brute yanked her arm.

“Do as he says, Peabody,” she blurted out. “If I am not home by tomorrow morning, you have my permission to call in the authorities. But don’t worry, I am sure I will see you there long before then.” Violet gave them all a wobbly smile.

The heroic effect of this speech was spoiled when the smuggler grabbed her elbow and she tripped as he jerked her off the road. Violet threw several longing glances back toward the carriage, the confines of which she had been so eager to escape not so long ago. She squinted in the darkness, eager to keep her eye on the last connection to her life.

She felt a pang of remorse mixed with the numb fear and awful uncertainty churning inside her. What she wouldn’t do now to be back in the carriage, listening to Hennie and Peabody’s tedious prattle! But within moments she lost sight of both the carriage and her companions as the heavy paw of her captor dragged her along in the direction of the sea, and her uncertain fate.

Only Hennie’s voice drifted out through the darkness to her, carried on the wind. “Whatever you do, Violet dearest, do not disturb his mask! Remember, to look upon Robert the Brute’s face is certain death!”