Page 47 of The Trials of Alaric
Eloise was inside, struggling in the grip of another woman. The sudden entrance of Tarquin and Alaric had the captor losing her hold, and Eloise threw herself into Tarquin’s arms. “I knew you would come for me. I told my brother.”
“I am sorry,” Tarquin told her. “I should have listened to you.”
“Time for apologies later,” said Alaric. “We need to get Eloise out of here.”
“My maid,” Eloise said. “They took her away. I have to rescue Maisie.”
“Maisie is safe,” Tarquin assured her. “She waited for us outside. She is in the carriage.”
Luke had opened the window and was staring out. “We can get out this way,” he said. “We’ll need to tie the sheets together. Alaric, can you get the door shut again? And locked?”
Alaric had been keeping an eye on Eloise’s jailor, but she did not seem to be intending any hostile moves, so he turned his attention to the door. They’d burst it open without breaking it, and it took Alaric a matter of moments to turn the key in the door to free the latch, shut it again, and relocate it. “Help me move that chest in front of it,” he ordered the jailor. She cast a wary glance at the other two men then complied.
Just in time, for there was a thunderous rattle of knocks on the door. “Purston! Open up. Is my sister safe?”
Eloise was climbing out of the window, her face white. Luke had gone ahead, and Tarquin was helping his wife. Alaric frowned at the woman—apparently her name was Purston—and he put his finger to his lips.
“Purston!” came another shout.
“You’d better follow us, Mrs. Purston,” Alaric told the jailor. “Bebbington is likely to take his anger out on you.”
Purston surprised him then. When she began to shout back through the door, Alaric made a move to clap his hand over her mouth to gag her but stopped when he realized she was trying to deceive Bebbington to keep him from realizing that the brothers were already in here with Eloise. “How do I know it is the viscount?” Purston demanded through the door. “You could be the villains after my lady, pretending to be Lord Bebbington.”
She nodded to Alaric and whispered, “You go first, m’lord. I’ll follow.”
“Thank you. Follow and we’ll take you to Birkenhead. We’ll give you some money to get away.”
She curtseyed. “Thankee, m’lord. I’d be right grateful. I’ve no love for them as women and no wish to help them.”
Alaric wasted no more time ducking out the window to climb down the sheet. It wasn’t far. The window looked out over the roof of a lower part of the house, and the other three were already on their way across the roof to the edge whereseveral trees grew close to the house. They were the outliers of a wilderness that stretched all the way to the road where their carriage waited.
As he sprinted after them, he heard a shout, and looked back. They had been seen from another window, and the man there was calling out to others! Mrs. Purston was almost to the lower roof. He didn’t wait for her but followed the others. Eloise froze on the edge of the roof, but Luke held out a hand from the closest branch of the oak and Tarquin murmured to his wife and lifted her, holding her out over the gap until she reached a hand for Luke’s and a foot for the branch, and was safe.
They scrambled together out of Tarquin’s way, and by the time Alaric reached the edge, Tarquin was helping Eloise down the trunk. Alaric took the leap and followed, scrambling down the tree as fast as he could, to join the fight he could hear below him.
Above, the tree shook as Mrs. Purston followed.
Two footmen were trying to stop the escape. Luke was fighting one of them. Tarquin was holding the other off but was hampered by his refusal to let Eloise go. Alaric grabbed the man and threw him into the one Luke was fighting, and they went down in a tumble of arms and legs.
Luke began to relax, then stiffened again as he saw Mrs. Purston descend the tree.
“She’s with us,” Alaric told him. Tarquin and Eloise were already running, hand in hand, into the wilderness.
Mrs. Purston had picked up a fallen branch, with which she thumped the two footmen on the head, one after the other. They subsided into a heap. Luke’s eyebrows shot up, but he said, “Very well. Let’s go, then.”
In moments, they were in the carriage, a little squeezed for room, with the footmen holding on wherever they could tothe outside. They headed back to Birkenhead where the yacht awaited.
Except, when they got there, it was to see the yacht sailing away down the Mersey.
Chapter Nineteen
“Best get yourselfand Eloise out of sight,” Alaric advised Tarquin. “Bebbington might follow us, and he is the local viscount. At best, he’ll make an embarrassing fuss. Luke and I shall see if we can find out what has happened to the yacht, and we’ll make inquiries about the ferry.”
Tarquin and Eloise walked off to a nearby inn, surrounded by footmen.
It was Luke who thought to speak to an elderly gentleman sitting on a bench, smoking a pipe, and watching the harbor. He must have been there for hours, for he remembered Luke, Alaric and Tarquin arriving on the yacht,Sea Mist. “You, sir, and the other gentleman, there,” he said, “and the gentleman who just escorted the lady into the inn.”
What luck to find such a keen observer. It made the old man’s day, too, to have Alaric and Luke hanging on his every word.
