Page 52 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
Arial was leaving a small skeleton staff to close the townhouse. She and Peter had decided not to renew the lease for the next quarter, but instead to buy a townhouse of their own in time for the next Season. Quite apart from the social and cultural life of the capital, Peter’s new interest in the work of the House of Lords justified having a London base.
Since Arial and Clara were only making half the trip that day, they departed London in the mid-morning, escorted by John’s ex-soldiers. This trip was very different to the first. Armored behind one of her new pretty masks, Arial felt comfortable about taking refreshment at the various inns along the way when they stopped to change the horses. The journey was still somewhat tedious, and she was pleased when they turned into the stable yard to descend for their overnight stop.
There was Sergeant Miller, watching for them from by the stables.
He hurried to help her descend. “Your rooms are ready, my lady. You and Miss Tulloch have a room each with a shared sitting room. The maids will have pallets in the sitting room, and the men are set up with rooms above the stables. The kitchen has water on the heat for a bath for you. As soon as we saw your coach, I sent one of the men to order refreshments, and they should be delivered to your rooms shortly.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. I was sure I could rely on you,” Arial said.
He moved slightly, so he was out of her line of sight, but not before she caught a strange expression on his face, as if he had bitten into something sour.
“Before you go up, my lady,” he said, “may I take a moment of your time? There was something I wanted to ask you.”
Clara, who had begun to walk towards the door, stopped and turned back.
The sergeant looked askance and began to shuffle. Was that a blush? “Just the two of us, my lady, if you do not mind. It is a private matter.”
Arial, intrigued, said to Clara, “Go on up, Clara. I will be there shortly.” Whatever did Sergeant Miller want? Was it about his secret romance, perhaps?
“We could talk in the garden,” the sergeant suggested.
Arial walked in the direction he indicated, waited for him to open the gate in a tall fence, and passed through.
The wordgardenwas overstating the case. It was a tangle of shrubs around an open area behind the inn. A door probably let on to the kitchen. Several tidy sheds undoubtedly held firewood and other utilitarian supplies.
Sergeant Miller pointed to a bench seat along a little path. Beside it, stood the cloaked form of a lady. “If you would be so kind, my lady. The young lady has asked for a moment of your time.”
Arial, making wild guesses as to whom it might be, walked to the indicated seat. In the next moment, a rag with a sickly smell was stuffed into her mouth and her head began to spin. As she fell into darkness, she heard Sergeant Miller protest, “You are not Miss Turner!” and Josiah’s voice commanding, “Seize him.”
Josiah’s was the first voice she heard when she surfaced, too.
“Come on, Lady Beast. I know you are awake.”
She felt a sharp pinch on her arm and could not suppress a squeak of pain as she tried—and failed—to move away from whatever injured her.
Her sight was clearing, though her head felt heavy, and her brain struggled as if through wads of cotton wool.
There he was. Her cousin Josiah, with a satisfied smirk on his face. She glared at him while she made sense of the constriction around her arms and on her ankles, and the cold breeze that blew on her face, her shoulders, and her knees. The glare was wasted, for he stared over her head.
She was sitting in a chair in her chemise. The smelly rag was no longer in her mouth, but her arms were bound to her torso with strips of cloth, and her ankles were also tied, presumably to the legs of the chair. Her mask was gone. She looked around the room. It contained four people besides Josiah, none of them Sergeant Miller, all of them avoiding Arial’s eye.
Marjorie was there, a cloak the color of the one Arial had seen in the garden folded over her arm.Why did Sergeant Miller think she was Miss Turner?The other three looked like hired muscle, even the woman. It was to them Josiah said, “Wait outside.”
“Are you certain, my lord?” said one of the men.
“She is hardly a danger to my wife and myself,” Josiah scoffed. “Not bound as she is.”
Marjorie added, “Lady Arial is a dear member of our family, despite her affliction. Please let us say our goodbyes.”
They began to shuffle out. “Wait!” Arial said. “Whatever the earl is paying you, Lord Ransome and I will pay more.”
The woman shook her head. “Poor lady.” Her comment was to one of the others, and Arial heard her add, as they all stepped outside and left her alone in the room with the Stancrofts, “She is so fortunate to have relatives who care.”
“Let us get right to business,” Josiah said. “Sign this, Arial, and I will let you go. Well, not go, exactly. But I will arrange for you to live in comfort. You will have to disappear of course, but that cannot be helped.”
She glanced at the page he waved before her but didn’t bother to read it. Her stomach lurched, and she avoided vomiting by sheer effort of will. “Let me go, Josiah. My husband will come for me, and if he finds you have kidnapped me, he will kill you.”
Josiah laughed. “That is not going to be a problem. We forgot to tell her, Marjorie.”
