Page 43 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
’Twas then Clive’s own hired man slithered from the shadows of the blacksmith’s shop and took the fellow down the same way he’d tried to fell Giselle.
“Shall I skin ’im, sir?” His man’s evil grin showed crooked black teeth.
Clive took Giselle’s wrists and pulled her to him. “Learn who pays him. I don’t care how. Send me word via the hotel. Come, sweetheart. We leave these two to their urgent business.”
Chapter Fifteen
Giselle squirmed inher seat. She and Clive had ridden for at least an hour in a traveling coach he had hired from some stables somewhere in Brighton. Minutes ago at a crossroads, they had switched to another carriage.
She did not ask for details. She was too angry, too frightened, and, frankly, too grateful to him to care. She crossed her arms, stared out the window, and relived over and over the horror of that man trying to…what? Kill her? Abduct her? Make her give him her drawings?
She’d never know.
Meanwhile, she faced Clive. Furious with her, he did not speak, nor reprimand her. A good thing. She would have given his frustration back to him.
Where they went was her primary thought. He had a plan but did not share it. So be it. She could accept it for now.
Suppressing a sigh, she realized she still had work to do. She eyed the pile of stock that he and she had collected from her room. Her drawings were all there. She would not leave without them. Her small oils and watercolors were in her work satchel in the boot. Her clothes, too, were there. His as well. They’d packed in a frenzy, calling for no maids or footmen to help, lest they ask where or why they left so quickly.
Wherever Clive took hernow, she had one problem—how to finish her drawings of Brighton and deliver them to Durand’s accomplice. She had no idea how to find the smuggler’s man. He would always contact her so that she could hand over her drawings. If he had any idea of what had happened to her, she did not know. Could not discover.
She grumbled. What a coil!
But she would find a way. She would. She was nearly done with her work, and Clive Davenport could save her from a kidnapper, spirit her away, and offer her safety. But he would not stop her.
She loved him. His care of her. His devotion to her welfare. His ingenuity.
He could not stop her.
*
She seared himwith her anger. Too bad. Did she think he’d blithely watch as she was abducted? Or worse?
He had a plan. It was working. He’d asked for secrecy from the hotel receptionist to hire a coach. Then he had ordered that coachman to take them to another posting inn where they could easily switch to another carriage. Yes, they traveled in broad daylight, but there was nothing for it. They had to leave Brighton and do it immediately.
Thank God he’d written days ago to his caretakers of his cottage. The Campbells were attentive and always at the ready to receive him. He had not visited often and had even offered the cottage to his friends and associates when they were in need. Recently, the man who took residence had done so because he had abducted the lady he loved…and done so by mistake.
This act, to take Giselle, was certainly no mistake. He sat back, nodding at the familiar bend in the road that would take them to the little thatched-roof cottage where he had grieved the demise of his unfortunate marriage at the death of his wife.
The coach turned south onto a great road, and he spied the small house that sat near the rocks of the beach. This was his caretakers’ home. Farther up the lane along a verdant forest path stood the cottage he and Giselle were to inhabit.
There was everything they needed. Supplied with food and whisky, they could live here indefinitely. The Campbells, the jolly older couple whom he had employed more than ten years ago, would see to their welfare.
What he and Giselle needed most was time to finish whatever work she had left—and to heal this breach between them.
If she would allow it.
His gaze drifted to her stack of watercolor drawings on the seat beside her. That was what kept them apart.
He had to persuade her to tell him what she did and why she could die because of it. He thought he had figured out her goal, but he had learned long ago never to predict and never to presume to know the workings of anyone’s heart.
She could have died in Brighton.
He would not allow it.
He would help her.
No matter how she argued.
