“My brother will pay you whatever you wish if you return me home,” Octavia said.
“I don’t think so,” the man said as he tucked the pistol into the waistband of his trousers. “I don’t think my pistol is needed anymore, do you?”
The coach sharply turned a corner and Octavia reached out to steady herself. “Who paid you to abduct me?”
“You shall find out soon enough.”
With a glance at the drapes that covered the window, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”
The man looked uninterested. “You ask far too many questions.”
“Not really. I have only asked three.”
“That is three too many in my opinion,” the man growled. “Now, be a good girl and shut your mouth before I do it for you.”
Octavia didn’t dare ask another question, but one thing was for certain- this man had vastly underestimated her and her brother. Neither one would stop fighting until she returned home. Until then, she just had to bide her time.
Chapter Nineteen
Harred had just changed out of his riding clothes when someone pounded on his bedchamber door. The valet crossed the room and opened the door, revealing a red-faced footman.
“What is the meaning of this?” the valet asked.
The footman didn’t respond to the valet but instead turned his attention towards Harred. “Lady William needs to speak to you at once, my lord.”
Hearing the urgency in the footman’s voice caused him to ask, “Did something happen to her?”
“No, but it is best if you hear it from her and not me,” the footman replied, shifting uncomfortably in his stance.
Harred knew he wasn’t going to get much more from the footman so he exited his bedchamber and hurried down the corridor. What could have caused his footman to have acted so strangely?
As he descended the stairs, he saw Ruth was pacing back and forth with a panicked look on her face, causing him to feel uneasy.
“Ruth,” he called out.
She stopped pacing and ran up to him. “Harred, something terrible has happened,” she rushed out.
His heart sank. “Did something happen to William?”
“What? No, William is fine, at least I think he is,” Ruth replied. “It is Octavia. Someone abducted her.”
The news hit Harred like a punch to the gut, leaving him reeling. In a voice that was far more steady than the turmoil he felt inside, he asked, “What happened?”
“We were driving in a coach to Gunter’s and it abruptly stopped. A man opened the door and pointed a pistol at Octavia and ordered her out of the coach,” Ruth informed him in between breaths. “I tried to stop him by offering him money but he refused it. Who refuses money?”
He placed his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. “What happened next?”
“The man tossed her into another coach and it raced off,” Ruth replied. “We tried to follow them, but the coach was moving too fast. There was nothing that we could do.”
Harred had so many questions for Ruth. He needed to know everything about what had transpired. “What can you tell me about the man?”
Ruth bit her lower lip. “He was big and scary. And he smelled awful.”
“Can you describe the smell?”
“Like excrement,” Ruth replied as she scrunched her nose.
That hardly helped him, but he hoped Ruth could expand on what she witnessed. “Did he say or do anything that was unusual?”
