Page 40 of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
Nate held on as Aldridge raced his phaeton towards the address Lady Charlotte had given them, weaving close to buildings, feathering past carriages, missing pedestrians by inches, turning corners on a single wheel.
Nate, Drew, and the duke had been about to go upstairs to the nursery when Aldridge arrived, asking anxiously for Charlotte. He had word of a trap set in Clerkenwell—someone who planned to compromise and marry Sarah’s sister. What would the kidnappers do when they found out they had the wrong sister, and a married woman, at that?
It might all be a lie. The informant was Lord Ashbury’s sister-in-law, the former Lady Ashbury. Her betrayals were multiple. Whether she was now betraying the slum king who was her brother or still working for him remained to be seen. If she was telling the truth, they had no time to lose.
If they arrived in time, it would be thanks to Aldridge’s driving skill. On any other day, Nate would be demanding that he slow down, take care. But with Sarah in trouble, he just gripped the side rail of the seat and gritted his teeth, and prayed as he had never prayed before.
How would he tell Elias if anything had happened to her? How would he survive losing her again?
Aldridge hauled the horses to a halt beside a carriage with the Winshire coat of arms. “You’re Lady Sarah’s driver?” he asked the man who sat nervously atop the carriage, a musket across his knees.
“Aye, sir.” The coachman looked towards a narrow gap between the buildings. “I’m waiting for Lady Bentham.”
Nate leapt to the ground, the pistol Uncle James had given him in one hand and his dagger in the other. “How long since my wife went in there, driver?”
“Perhaps fifteen minutes, sir?” the driver answered. “Is there something wrong?”
Aldridge shouted at a man who was lounging against a wall. “You there?!” The man spat a stream of yellow coloured bile into the street and sneered. A coin appeared between Aldridge’s fingers and disappeared as quickly.
“I am the Marquis of Aldridge and I am giving you two options. You make sure no one touches my carriage or my horses or those of Lady Bentham, and you get a crown. Anything happens to either team or rig, and I find you and extract your brains through your nostrils, burn them, and sell them as pie filling. Your choice.” He held up the coin. “A shilling now, the rest when I come back.”
The man straightened. “Done.” He held out a hand and caught the coin that Aldridge tossed even as Nate ran past him into the alley.
“Stay here and tell the duke where we’ve gone,” he heard Aldridge tell the driver before following after him, catching up as Nate reached the narrow stairs that led to the attic that they’d been told had been used to lay a trap for Charlotte.
They heard the arguing from above before they began the steep climb. A shrill female voice was demanding that a problem be removed, while at least two males were arguing that killing the servants of a duke was only going to make things worse.
It was enough to warn them to make their approach quiet. The combatants were so intent on their dispute that Nate and Aldridge were able to get all the way to the fourth floor, where a scrawny female and two men—one tall and skinny, and the other short and bulky, stood over the tied-up body of a man in Winshire livery, arguing about whether to kill him, let him go, or dump him still living into the Thames.
The bonnet on the woman’s head ratcheted Nate’s wrath several more notches. He had last seen it on Sarah.
He had time to wonder whether the ducal scion would be any good in a fight—no polite gentlemanly rules here—before the short man looked up and saw them reach the landing, Nate still a little in the lead.
At his gasp, the other two turned, but by then Nate and Aldridge were upon them. Nate had learned his combat skills in a dirty school, fighting the French, pirates and privateers for His Majesty’s Royal Navy, and any number of scoundrels in ports around the world who thought an English sailor might be good for a coin or two.
He took the short man, hurling all his weight at him to take him down, and keeping him there with a knife to the throat. He didn’t know where Aldridge learned to fight, but the marquis had the tall man subdued in seconds, with a punch to his gut followed by a knee to his crotch and an elbow to his chin as he curled over his injured jewels.
The woman abandoned her colleagues to run away down the stairs, straight into the arms of the duke and his men. In moments, the three miscreants were bound. Drew knelt by the footman, removing his gag and cutting through his ropes.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace. Someone jumped me from behind. Her ladyship? And Mr Yahzak?”
The duke put a hand on his man’s shoulder. “We’ll find them, John. We’ll check upstairs.” As he spoke, a yell came from upstairs. “Kagan!”
Nate, with his wife’s bonnet in one hand, led the way again, up into the space under the sloping roof, where a row of high windows gave light to the group of girls who sat with fabric on their laps, their hands still, their eyes wide and fearful.
One of them had crept from her seat and was trying to use her scissors to saw through the ropes that tied the duke’s guardsman, who let out a burst of foreign words as the duke and then Drew entered behind Nate.
Drew turned to translate for Nate and Aldridge. “Yahzak was knocked out as well, and the girls know nothing; only that their mistress had four men waiting for Sarah, and that they took her, not ten minutes ago.”
“We shall question their mistress,” the duke said. “Young women, I appreciate your help to my liege man, here. Your mistress will not be returning. If you need work or shelter, you may depend upon me. But right now, I need to rescue my niece.”
One of the girls curtseyed and held out a pretty reticule. “She dropped this, sir.” Nate took several steps into the room to take it. He felt the gun inside. Damn.
* * *
They cut the bindings on Sarah’s ankles and then two of them hustled her upstairs. She stumbled across the room they pushed her into, and stood by the bed, glaring at them.
One of them grinned, showing his gums and a few crooked teeth. He started towards her with his hands out, but the other grabbed him by his collar and jerked him back. “Leave ‘er alone.”
