The Bad Baron's Daughter (16 page)

Katie folded her hands in her lap and looked down at her pale knuckles. “So,” she said, “what do you want me to do? Die?”

Guy walked to Katie, his lips parted in a feverish leer. “I must confess, my Venus, that when I got your letter and found that you were coming to London to work in a gin shop, it did cross my mind that it might be… convenient if you met with an accident there… perhaps an altercation with an irate customer? These things are so common in those low slums, aren’t they? So I had Chilworthy slip a few coins to, let me see, what was the fellow’s name… ?”

“Nasty Ned,” said Katie, her voice strained.

“Thank you, cousin. Nasty Ned, it was. Of course, you know that story. Really, my dear, it’s not as though you’ve lead such a merry life that you would wish to hang onto it so. As long as your death was accomplished quickly and without a great deal of pain, what could it possibly matter, hmmm?” Guy rubbed Katie’s silky cheek lightly with the nose-cap of his pistol. “But that’s all past, my heart. You see,” he breathed, leaning closer to Katie, “that was before I had seen you.”

Katie grit her teeth. “Don’t tell me,” she said tersely, “I make you feel like a stallion on a stud farm. Well, I’ll tell you something, cousin, I’d rather be had by a stallion on a stud farm than by you! Don’t waste your time trying to make love to me; frankly, I mislike it worse than your threats.”

It was not, perhaps, the most tactful thing to have said under the circumstances. Guy’s nostrils flared with fury and he grasped Katie’s slender throat between his angry palms. “Bitch!” he shouted. “By God, you ought to thank God fasting that you can find anyone to marry you. Linden’s whore, weren’t you? Before you’re much older you’ll find yourself strapped in my saddle or nobody’s!”

Katie sat deathly still under Guy’s crushing grasp. She raised her frightened blue eyes to look at him. “How can you expect me to marry a man who’s been trying to kill me? I don’t think that foreshadows a happy married life,” Guy’s fingers tightened perceptibly. “B-but we could compromise, couldn’t we? If you let me go, I’ll sign a paper saying you can have Grandpa’s money. After the things he said about me, I wouldn’t have it on a platinum calabash.”

Guy gave a faint, wheezy snicker. “No, no, Katie. No compromises. I’m not such a fool as to chance your escaping me now.” He released her and called down the hallway, “Chilworthy! A task for you!” Guy’s lips pressed into a loose gloating pout as he walked back to the library table and thrust the pistol back into its drawer. “Yes, my sweet little cousin, we shall have our accounting! If you choose not to marry me, why then,” he shrugged moodily, “I’ll kill you. But first, little rabbit, I’ll have you! And Chilworthy, too, would you like that? I know Chilworthy would. I’ll give you one hour to think things out. Perhaps on reflection you’ll become more reasonable, eh? Ah, Chilworthy, bind her wrists, will you? Yes, the drapery cord will do nicely, just make sure it’s plenty tight.” Guy pulled Katie’s wrists in front of her while Chilworthy wrapped them. “There. Now come with us.” Guy pulled Katie violently down the long, tunneling hall and threw her into the bare bedchamber. “One hour, Katie,” he snarled after her. “Either put yourself in the mood for wedlock or so help me, God, I’ll splice you without it!”

“Do as you like,” responded Katie wearily through the door, “but I can’t promise that I won’t get sick.”

Lord Linden had cast his long body into one of Laurel’s Nile green side chairs. He stroked the gilt gesso acanthus carving on one arm absently with his graceful fingers as he listened to Laurel’s account of Ivo Guy’s visit. Laurel observed with asperity the slow frown gathering in his sable eyes.

“Ha! You don’t think I should have let her go with him this afternoon, do you? I knew it!” said Laurel, eyes flashing. “If you intend to reproach me, then pray remove your boots from that klismos. The maids forever complain that you muddy the seat covers and I won’t have myself and my furniture abused at the same time.”

“What the hell is a klismos?” asked Linden, momentarily diverted. “Oh, you mean this chair? You’re mispronouncing it, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know, but thank you for correcting me,” said Laurel sweetly, wishing that she could slap the smirk from his face. “Would it be your pleasure to enumerate your objections to my allowing Katie to leave my house in the care of her legal guardian?”

“All right. One, how do you know he was really her guardian? Two, how do you know that he could be trusted with her? And three, doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that he knew she was here?”

A neat deck of cards lay on a short saber-legged table beside Laurel. She picked them up and began to shuffle them idly from hand to hand. “Very well. One, I knew he was really her guardian because he had papers to prove it. Two, I don’t know for certain that he can be trusted with her, but then, I do know for certain that you can’t. And three… what was three? Oh, yes. I suppose it was odd that he should know she was here. Perhaps there was some gossip that she was here? Well, all right, I know what you want me to say. You think he paid someone to trace her whereabouts. So what? You might have done the same if you heard your cousin was lodged under the wing of a notorious libertine. You still haven’t taken your feet from my klis… my chair.”

Linden dropped his head backward over his chair’s twisted floral backing. “Libertine? I’ve always thought of you as a woman of the world, Laurel, but would you go so far as to call yourself a libertine?”

“Stupid!” she snapped. “I meant you. Go ahead, then. Storm after the chit and demand her back from her legal guardian on the vaguest grounds. Lord, and with your reputation, tool A pretty fool you’ll look.” Laurel leaned to one side and began to lay the cards one by one on a spindly rosewood side table. She watched Linden from the corner of her eye. “You know, Lesley,” she said calmly, “if you really care about the girl, you ought to be grateful that she’s in the hands of her family at last.”

Linden lifted his head and massaged the back of his neck. “Oh, Laurel, you are so clever, so canny. ‘God grant me to contend with those that understand me.’ What makes you think I care about the chit?”

“Oh, I’m a fey creature, my dear,” she said with an airiness that she didn’t feel. “If you want to know where she’s gone, it would be easy enough to find out, in all faith. Guy took her in a rented carriage. Antoinette said the wheels were trimmed in chartreuse. That would be Bentworth, would it not? These livery stables keep a record of their transactions, don’t they? By greasing the right palms…” Her voice trailed to a halt. “Well, Lancelot, will you chase about the countryside to assure yourself of the well-being of your lady?”

Linden rose from his chair and stretched. “Laurel, I’ve spent six hours in the saddle already today riding in from Dorset and I’m promised to Sefton for cards at eight. Do you really think that my care for the chit is strong enough to have me set out after her like a hound trailing a lame jack-rabbit?”

Alone in the darkened bedroom, Katie stood gazing from the window, her shoulders slumped under the folds of the traveling cape. The cape had belonged to Laurel and was lined with sumptuous, frothy sable. Katie was glad that she hadn’t removed it before Chilworthy tied her hands; the scratchy damp of the fog had crept silently into the house, and Katie could feel its bleak whip on her bare ankles. She saw the fox again, its lithe body stretched and taut as it crept across the yard.

For a time, Katie had tried to loosen her bound wrists, sawing her arms back and forth, hoping to loosen the rigid knots. She had succeeded in shaving off the top layer of her skin, nothing more. She was no more successful when she tried to twist her fingers to pick at the knot. It wouldn’t budge.

The clouds sneaked across the sky, sometimes cloaking the moon in their stealthy folds and throwing dodging shadows at the earth below. Several times in Katie’s hour she had heard the distant pounding of hooves on the road. The ragged ears of the two horses tethered outside would lift with interest as the hoofbeats drew closer and then grew fainter until they passed into the night’s silence. She could not see the road, concealed as it was by that evil copse of twisted trees. He’s going to kill me, thought Katie. He’s going to kill me.

A virile, rhythmic canter cut across the hollow wail of the perching owl. Katie wondered what rider would be reckless enough to canter his mount in this dense fog bank. She waited for the hoofbeats to die in the distance and was amazed when they didn’t. They slowed to a walk and grew more audible yet. Through the thin wedge of land clipped through the rotted woods came a shadowy form that blended and condensed into a single rider and horse, the mist curling around the horse’s powerful hocks. Katie recognized the horse almost before she knew the rider. Ciaffa. And Lord Linden.

Katie drew in a shaken breath and watched without moving as Linden dismounted and rapped abruptly on the lodge door. Fearful that he would vanish into the dense, lonely night, she wanted to call out, scream his name. The lodge door opened cautiously and Chilworthy walked out a pace, bathed in the rich candlelight. She could see them exchange words. Sweet Jesus, thought Katie, Chilworthy will tell him some lie and he’ll go away. It was some forty yards from her window to where the two stood talking and the glass was thick. If she cried out would he hear her? Or would Guy run back to silence her before she could attract Linden’s attention? Then, as though her thoughts had materialized him by some malevolent power, Katie heard Guy’s heavy tread snapping quickly up the corridor toward the bedchamber.

There was an old cotton towel on the washstand rung and Katie dove her hands into it in feverish, unthinking haste. Do this right, she told herself fervently, you may get only one chance. Katie lifted her bound hands over her head and brought them down against the window with one stunning blow. The window exploded as though cannon shot had been pumped through it.

Protecting her face with her cloak, Katie hurled her body over the sill and onto the ground, landing in several hard, tumbling somersaults. Clumsy with terror, she pushed up to her knees and then to her feet, stumbling over the awkward confining skirts of her gown and cape. Glass had swirled and splintered everywhere. It glinted in Katie’s hair like well-cut diamonds as she ran jerkily toward Lord Linden at last, calling his name, over and over and over.

Linden had turned toward the sound of glass rending in time to see Katie fling herself from the shattered window. He reached her before she had time to cover half the distance between them.

“Katie,” he said, steadying her shoulders in a careful grip. “Katie, what in God’s name… ?”

She spoke in a tumbled rush, her blue eyes wild.

“He wants to kill me, my cousin wants to kill, me because my grandfather left me his money. He paid Nasty Ned to kill me and… and Chilworthy came to your house that night.” She was shaking and Linden released her shoulders to cup her bound wrists firmly between his hands. “He said he’d marry me, my lord, and he said if I wouldn’t, if I wouldn’t…”

“What the devil’s going on out here?” came the stentorian tones of Ivo Guy. Chilworthy moved back a step and the misty rectangle of light was blocked by Katie’s puffing cousin. He took a few lumbering steps from the doorway. “So you’re the famous Linden, eh? I’m not surprised to see you’re pursuing your illicit passions with this helpless young waif here. It must shake you to the depths of your carnal soul to have my innocent cousin snatched out of the reach of your filthy desires.” Behind him, Chilworthy vanished into the house.

“Life is a continuing surprise,” said Linden softly. He drew Katie into the shelter of his arm and carefully picked a few shards of glass from her hair. “My poor little Katie,” he murmured. “Would you like me to crush this vermin or simply get you out of here?”

“You’re not taking her anywhere! I have legal custody of her and you’ve no authority to remove her, my fine lord.” Guy’s eyes narrowed into porcine slits. “What lies has the little witch been telling you? Heed her not. She has a hoaxing tongue. It’s her rearing; she’s wild to a fault.”

Linden raised a gentle eyebrow. “In fact, so wild that you found it necessary to bind her wrists,” he said quietly.

Guy looked flustered. “I was disciplining her.”

“In the style of de Sade?” sneered Linden. “Does your legal authority include physical abuse?”

Chilworthy had reappeared silently from the house, creeping up to the scene shielded by Ivo Guy’s bulk, and carrying one of the long-handled double-bladed axes from the set in the hallway. Accordingly, Ivo Guy suddenly found himself in possession of the heavy weapon, and Chilworthy went rapidly around him toward the hitching post.

“Ha!” ejaculated Ivo Guy triumphantly. He whistled the wicked blade in a giant arc through the fog. “Now the shoe is on the other foot, my fine blueblood! I’ll chop you down like a tree!”

Linden thrust Katie behind him. “In the fiend’s name, Guy. Put that thing down before you hurt yourself,” he said irritably.

“I’m not the one who needs to worry about that, my friend.” The blade sliced the miasma again and Ivo Guy advanced a few steps. “You think to interfere with my plans for the wench? I think you will not!”

Linden pushed Katie back against the side of the house before walking back to stand not quite four feet from Guy. There was light enough from the window for Katie to see the subtly insolent grin that sparkled in Linden’s coffee eyes as he stood, one hand resting carelessly on his hip, facing Guy’s naked blade.

“No!” cried Katie. “My lord, you don’t have a weapon! He’ll…” Her voice trailed off as she suddenly remembered the pistol Guy had drawn from the library table inside the house. “Oh, Lord Linden, he has a pistol. And I know where it is! Please, wait. I’ll run and bring it!”

“Katie, no, damn it. I don’t need a pistol. Come back here.” But she was already gone. “Damnation!” he swore and jumped back lightly as Guy reared the mammoth axe and swung it toward Linden mightily.

“Swine!” said Linden, and the smile vanished. He shifted his weight quickly to his left leg, then braced, balanced, and flowing like whitewater over rapids, he threw Guy a kick that caught the big man squarely below the jaw and sent him flying heavily onto his back on the driveway. A fine powder spray of dirt rose and blended into the silvery moonlit mist. Then two things happened at the same time; Chilworthy came out of the dark leading the pair of saddled hacks, and from somewhere inside the lodge came the muffled crack of pistol fire.