Page 84 of When the Rogue Returns
A chill froze her blood. “Youknowwhat happened to him after I left?”
“The friends who helped us leave Amsterdam told me.” His voice turned snide. “You must have quite the hold on him. I heard that they starved and humiliated him, day after day, determined to make him break down and admit who committed the crime. And he still wouldn’t point the finger at you, poor sod.”
Oh, Victor, my love.“That ‘poor sod’ will see you dead before this is over,” she warned in a harsh rasp. “And I’ll see you hang for this if it’s the last thing I do.”
He tightened his grip on her throat again. “I wouldn’t be planning on that if I were you,sister.Not if you want Amalie to ever meet her father.” He mused aloud, “Perhaps we’ll pass her off as our daughter. With those blond curls of hers, she certainly looks like Jacoba.”
Impotent tears welled in her eyes.
Suddenly she heard the sounds of rustling brush. “Isa! Where are you?” Victor called. “Forget about that damned golf ball! I concede the wager.”
“I must go,” Gerhart whispered. “But I’ll see you on the road at five o’clock. Don’t forget.”
Then he tightened his hold until everything went black.
When she came to, she was lying on her back on the ground staring up into Victor’s worried face as he knelt beside her, chafing her hands.
“Are you all right?” he said hoarsely. “Did you faint?”
“I’m... fine,” she rasped, her throat still too sore to do more than whisper. For half a second, she considered not telling him and just doing what Gerhart wanted, however she could.
But that impulse swiftly fled. Victor had a right to know. And she needed to tell him. “Gerhart was here. You must go after him!”
Shock lit Victor’s face before he leapt to his feet in a fury. “Devil take it, I’ll kill him for hurting you!”
“No!”she hissed, grabbing his leg. “Don’t go near him! He’s kidnapped Amalie, but he wouldn’t say where he’s got her. So just follow him.That’s all!”
Victor paled. After briefly scanning the woods, he headed off at a run.
She lay there a moment, her breath coming in labored gasps. When she could breathe again, she struggled to her feet. Glancing around, she looked for anything Gerhart might have left behind as a clue to Amalie’s whereabouts, but all she found was her bonnet, which had been knocked off in the struggle with Gerhart. As she bent to pick it up, she spotted the fleur-de-lis hatpin nearby, glittering in the leaves.
The tears she’d been holding back during her encounter with Gerhart now streamed down her face. She took the hatpin in her gloved hands and stared blindly into the woods.
“Hold on, dearling,” she whispered. “We’re coming for you. They won’t get away with this.”
Guilt settled in her belly like soured wine. She should have listened to Victor, and gone to get Amalie the second those two appeared in Edinburgh. No, she should never have let her daughter out of her sight in the first place. If only she’d kept her at home. If only—
The sounds of footsteps in the brush made her turn to find Rupert and Mary Grace approaching.
Rupert took in her tears and dirt-smeared skirts and his eyes widened. “What the deuce happened? We’ve been looking and looking for you.” He surveyed her surroundings. “Where’s Victor? He called out that he’d found you.”
She thought fast. “I... I startled a vagrant who knocked me down. Victor went after him.”
“A vagrant!” Rupert cried. “On the estate? No doubt it was a poacher. I shall speak to the gamekeeper at once.”
“No, I’m all right,” she said hastily. She had to talk to Victor, figure out what they were going to do before she involved Rupert. “I’m sure he’s gone by now.”
She hoped he was. And that Victor was tracking him.
“Perhaps you should go lie down in the house,” Mary Grace said, hurrying to her side to take hold of her arm. “You look unwell, truly you do. And you’re talking funny.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “I—I probably should go inside.”
The rustling of brush coming from the direction Victor had headed made her heart sink. As soon as he came into view, panic seized her.
“You two go on,” she urged Rupert and Mary Grace, wanting only to get rid of them now. “Victor’s back. He can look after me.”
“Did you find the poacher?” Rupert asked Victor.
