“The duchess asked to let them run free in the garden. The enclosed one on the east side. We had a man there ordered to shove—er, bring them into the house through the French doors if there was funny business. Two more in the kitchen yard.”
The duchess…it figures.“When?”
“Not more than half an hour—probably less. The little viscount thinks he went to the stables. Potboy said there were kittens.”
Brynn grunted. “Did you search it?” He fastened his shirt and tied a dark scarf around his neck before yanking on his coat. If his appearance offended his fussy Clarion lordship, too bad.
“The duchess sent the men from the kitchen yard. I thought I best fetch you.”
Something in his voice made Brynn glance up from buttoning. Goodfellow wasn’t generally given to alarms, but Brynn found him profoundly shaken. “What is it?”
“The duchess. We can’t find her.”
Brynn’s blood ran cold.
“The groom told me she went to the stables, but no one had seen her there, nor the little boy, either. The earl has them tearing his stables apart, and Mr. Kendrick and the duke are with him.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The boxwood thatframed the far side of the rose garden fronted a wild thicket. Maddy cursed her grandfather’s decision to put a wilderness of trees and shrubs between her grandmother’s flower garden and the stables. An acre of trees thick with blackberry brambles, hawthorn, and gorse, it hid the bustle of the carriage house and stables from the breakfast room, the formal drawing room her mother had used for entertaining, and the bedrooms above that might otherwise have a view of the paddock and brick stable buildings. He’d claimed it was meant to protect the garden as a quiet bower for guests, but Maddy suspected he’d wanted to hide something, though she had no idea what.
Subtle signs of a large animal—or small boy—crawling under the boxwood led her to wiggle between two of the bushes in the hedge. The tiny clearing on the other side was a perfect hiding place, one Maddy suspected Marj knew well. Daniel, however, was not there.
An overgrown path of the sort likely frequented by animals led into the thicket vaguely in the direction of the stable block. With a choice of crawling back between boxwood that had already torn her sleeve or following the paltry path, she paused until she saw what looked like small footprints. She decided to follow the path and meet the guards at the stables, convinced Daniel had gone that way.
She stumbled through the underbrush, ducking branches and pulling her skirt off thorn bushes, calling his name. Twenty yards in, the track, such as it was, disappeared entirely. She paused before turning back and called his name one more time, shocked by an answering response, the sound of a child crying out.
She couldn’t discern what he was saying. “Daniel, is that you? Call to me, love, so I can find you.” When he responded, she made out a few words, one of which sounded alarmingly like “help.” She forced branches aside, ducked her head, and lurched forward toward his voice. “Are you lost, Daniel? Call out to me but stay put and let me come to you.” She heard a small yelp and then silence.
Stopping briefly, disoriented, she moved again in the direction of her best guess, urging the boy to talk to her but receiving no response. She continued forward until she brushed aside another bush only to come up against the wooden wall of a derelict shed. “Daniel? Are you hiding in there?” No sound.
She felt along the side of the shed, risking splinters on one side and brambles on the other, until she came to the end and stopped in horror. Daniel sat on the ground, leaning against the jamb of a door half off its hinges. He had been bound with wild grapevine, and a filthy rag of some sort was in his mouth.
Before she could react, an arm came around her throat, and Jessop hissed, “Scream, and I’ll cut you. You know I can.” He kneed her back, shoving her into the shed to sprawl on the dirt floor. She rolled over in time to see him pick up Daniel and toss him on top of her. “Make a sound, and I’ll knife the boy,” he growled.
She hugged Daniel to her chest and reached for the rag in his mouth.
“Take it out,” Jessop rasped, “but if he makes a sound, I’ll have to hurt him.” He waggled the knife in front of her.
Maddy struggled to a sitting position, still holding the boy. She wondered how far they were from the stable yard and how loud she’d have to shout to be heard. She doubted anyone knew this abandoned garden shed existed. She hadn’t known of it, and she’d lived at Clarion Hall most of her life. Even if the guards at the stables had heard her, they wouldn’t have time to get to her before Jessop carried out his threat. Worse, he might choose to grab Daniel and disappear again. Best, she thought, to avoid antagonizing the villain until Brynn and Rob, who would surely have been alerted, came. She needed to buy time until they found her. That they would, she had no doubt.
“I see your eyes. Yer mind is working. Too damned clever for a woman,” Jessop said. “Not as smart as I am. Got away from you, dint I? Cut the rope sitting right next to you. I wasn’t expecting you, though. I’ll have to think what to do.”
She groped for something to say, anything to keep him talking. “What are you doing in this broken-down garden shed?”
“Lucked onto it. Tried the stables, but that uppity colonel of yours has men all over this place. Got their dinner, though, and a loaf of bread and went to ground. We know about living rough in Carolina, so I hid. Found this place and hid.”
“But how do you—”
“Quiet. You’re trying to distract me. Probably can’t hear us up at the stables, but best keep you quiet.”
Her mind spun.Keep talking, Maddy.“Why are you holding the boy?”
“Need a bargaining chip, don’t I?” Wild-eyed and fidgety, he droned on in a low voice. “I heard that crippled nephew of mine, the one too lily-livered to take what’s owed him, talk about his brats back at the inn. Imagine my delight when his whelp wandered in and told me who he was. Looking for kittens, he says.” Jessop’s chuckle sent a chill up her spine. “I showed him a use for kittens.” He gestured to a brace of rabbits hanging from a hook, their throats cut. “Told him he could have the same if he didn’t cooperate.”
Daniel whimpered, and Maddy cuddled him close.
“Two days looking for a chance to grab something that duke wants, and then two of you fall into my lap. Like I said, luck.” Jessop leaned close, the knife in his hand, his breath foul in her face. The knife darted forward, and she started to roll the boy underneath her, but she wasn’t fast enough. In a lightning move, Jessop cut the strip holding her bandages in place, flipped it up on the knife, and tossed it away. His speed drove her fear to greater heights.Don’t underestimate him, Maddy.
